Falcon soars

Quote

2011-11-05T16:01:00.001+05:30

Liked the quote...so punched it here...

Always do sober, what you can do drunk.
That will help you keep your mouth shut.
-- Ernest Hemingway

Happy Diwali Captain Vaibhav Gupta

2011-10-28T21:40:00.002+05:30

It’s been a great Diwali having spent it with my parents after almost 7 years! It was also supposed to be a family holiday with my younger brother also coming home. He is a Captain in the Indian Army currently posted somewhere in J&K.

Diwali was on 26^th and he had come to Delhi on 15^th for a one month long annual leave. On 16^th October (his birthday for which my parents had made some plans), he got a call from his unit in the morning asking him to rejoin since his holiday had been cancelled. By evening, he had left. Me and my wife reached Delhi on 22^nd as scheduled only to find that he had gone to some secluded position high up in the Himalayas where even mobile connectivity is absent. Its two days after Diwali and he continues to be there.

On the 26^th, he made a call to us for a minute from a wireless system and I asked what he was doing up there…at temperatures even below minus 20 degree Celsius…and his reply was “Protecting you”. While politicians debate on the relevance of ASFPA, has anyone really thought about the army men who are getting affected by this act? Just like my brother who makes me proud (I actually feel blood rushing through me at double speed when I think of him) there are thousands of soldiers who would give anything to spend time with families at least on festivals. It’s the threats that lurk on our borders and even inside our country which prevents this.

This post dedicated to my brother who is giving everything just to make sure that we enjoy our festivals.

Jai Hind!

Water Mining – Making money out of nothing!

2011-10-08T09:23:00.000+05:30

One glance on the roads of Bangalore at any time during the day or the night and you will not miss the tankers carrying water around. So I decided that coming back from this hiatus, they seem to be what I should put a post on…

Selling water is a good business in this city. All you need is a bore-well which costs around Rs.1 lakh including the money that you give (illegal of course) to various government departments. According to a leading daily, 40 borewells are dug in this city everyday! That is one number which is hard to digest for a state which has scarcity of water…. Back to the business, you can hire 2-3 water tankers by paying around Rs.1000 per day to the owner. The rest of the costs go as below:

Daily costs per tanker:

Tanker Hire charges	Rs.1000
Driver Commission	Rs.500
Assistant Commission	Rs.200
Diesel	Rs.1000
Electricity cost (per day per tanker)	Rs.500
Total Cost per day	Rs.3,200

Truthfully, there are no other costs on a monthly basis because tanker maintenance is done by the owner of the tanker. If working 25 days per month, this translates to a total cost of Rs.80,000 per tanker per month.

Now lets talk about the sales. Typically, a tanker does around 10 rounds to predestined places everyday. One tanker of water costs around Rs.500 (can go up in case of scarcity but never comes below this). So that means a daily sale of Rs.5000 per day or Rs.1,25,000 per month translating to a profit of Rs.45,000 per month per tanker for a borewell owner. Have around 3 such tankers working for you (that’s the average that I have seen) and you are making a cool Rs.1.5 lakhs per month (or around $3,300 per month) at a total investment of Rs.1 lakh and you are doing nothing! Call any of these water businesses and you will most probably reach a lady in a house who will only take a message or address if you want water somewhere.

Understanding the business, now to the point I am trying to make. Water is a natural resource and just like any other natural resource (except sun and wind) it is bound to deplete unless measures are taken to ensure conservation. None of these businesses that I have spoken about above pay any taxes on the profits they make. Officially, for the government, they don’t exist! (Obviously a typical BBMP official or Water Board official here pays a bribe of few lakhs to get a juicy posting and they will make a lot more money than that.) And the density of these businesses is few ten’s in every square kilometre if the city.

While our governments are trying to regulate everything under the sun, what I believe that they need to regulate is this mushrooming market of illegal water mining which is depleting us of much more than we can comprehend. Start putting a mining royalty on each of these businesses and possibly regulate the upward price movements so that consumers are not hit to the extent since profits are anyway being made in good measure.

Use the royalty money to implement water conservation schemes across the city to ensure that while we use water which is required, we don’t start missing it after few years.

Anyone listening?

Fuel Hike – Oh Hell!

2011-08-16T18:48:00.000+05:30

“Come fast. We have a flight to catch.” screamed Savita at the top of her lungs. “They say women take time. They have to see this brother of mine. Come you idiot. I am going to the car.”

“Its you who want to go, remember.” Came the mocking reply. “Obviously you will be ready.”

Savita and Ravi were 18 year old twins but no one in their right mind will place them in the same room for more than a few minutes without expecting some nuclear explosions. This was the trip their dad had organized for the annual shopping festival in Dubai. Savita had been listing down all the things she wanted to buy from there while Ravi only wanted the latest PS and probably the I-Pad both of which did not require much “shopping”. His requests to go to Australia had been turned down without a second thought.

“Remember we went to London last year. It had ‘Ravi’ written all over. Can’t we go to one place where I want to go?”

“What about Italy the year before? Why does a single girl want to go on a romantic destination anyway? Do it after your marriage.”

“That will be Rs.750 sir.” The cab driver just wanted to get away from this bickering duo.

“750! You must be crazy! We came to the airport just last month and it was just 600 bucks!”

“The prices have increased twice in this time ma’am.”

“Another fuel hike!” groaned Ravi. “I cannot afford this from my meagre pocket money. Dad has to send us more money. Call it the inflation allowance or something. What say Savitri?”

“Call me that name once more and I will use my pocket money to hire a killer to kill you. And yes, you are right. We should join Anna Hazare and go on a hunger strike till we get more pocket money.”

“Or I have a brilliant idea. Lets buy one of those hybrids which works on battery and uses hardly any fuel. No fuel, no fuel hike botheration!”

“Wah! My brother! And how much does this hybrid cost? Wait. Don’t tell me. 20 lakhs? You think dad will give you the money? And I need my own car so just double the amount.”

“You have some other brainwave, you brainless moron? At least I gave one idea.”

“Hmmm. I will ask some questions and you answer them. Ok?”

“Asking questions! Ok….go ahead.”

“Why do we need petrol?”

“To fill our cars. What kind of question is that?”

“Shut up and answer. Why do we need to fill our cars?”

“To go to college or hang out.”

“What do you do in college?”

“Mostly time pass or carry on to a mall or something.”

“Why?”

“To hang out…were you not listening?”

“So you fill up your car, take it to college and then hang out in the mall where you will anyway go if their was no college also?”

“Yep…I guess that’s correct.”

“So why not just live in the mall? Lets buy the mall!”

“Yeah! Or just keep buying a new Fiat and make use of the fuel vouchers that come with the car! Better, you may even get an upgrade! You are going crazy, you know that na?”

“Ok, what if I say that I the reason I wanted to go to Dubai was not shopping?”

“Huhhhhh!!!!! Where did Dubai come into the picture?”

“Hey! Its where all the oil tycoons live right? I will just marry one of them and be immune to any oil price hikes for the rest of my life! You think of what you will do!”

“I am calling dad and telling him that his daughter is going crazy. I actually hope that you do get married in Dubai. I will be rid of you FOREVER! Now that is a riddance much better than the fuel hike!”

“Mr.Ravi Verma, I will kill you. Wait….no. I will give you a slow death by staying right here and to hell with the fuel prices.”

Independence day....

2011-08-16T09:01:00.000+05:30

It was a big day for 90 year old Dr.Lakshman Sharma. It was a day he had dreamt about almost every day for the last so many years. Neither his wife, now long gone, nor any of his 4 children or 11 grandchildren ever understood why the well educated PhD from Meerut could want to do something so seemingly ridiculous. None of them could understand that amidst all the tensions of being a 20 year old in the India that wanted but could not be, young boys dreaming together about a free country amidst nature had been one of the best things to have happened to him.

Gaurav, one of his grandsons who was working for a big MNC in Bangalore had invited him to stay for few days with him and his wife, Rashmi. The frail Dr.Lakshman had grabbed this one chance he got with both his hands and took the next flight out of Delhi. Gaurav and Rashmi were thrilled to receive him at the airport and he drove with them in their American Ford back to the well built multi-storeyed apartment that they had bought in the city. Gaurav knew of his grandfather’s longing to visit Brindavan Gardens, and today they were going to drive to the beautiful gardens.

Lakshman had been to these gardens once before. It was November of 1942 and Lakshman and his best friend Ramesh had been invited over to Mysore by Raghu who had met Ramesh through some family friends. The two 20 year olds had gladly taken 4 days via trains to reach Mysore and escape the unrelenting winters of the North and the scalding heat of the Quit India Movement which had the entire North simmering. One beautiful evening, Raghu took them both to the newly laid out Brindavan Gardens where they met up with some of Raghu’s friends and sat down to talk.

“Wow, you must be enjoying watching all those Britishers hopping around all scared!” said Manju, a 22 year old.

“What is the difference between the North and the South anyways?” This query from the 17 year old Senthil who was hoping that we will take him to Meerut with us. He had been a small kid during Meerut Conspiracy and felt the city was a Mecca.

“When do you think will we become Independent Lakshman?” Raghu intervened.

Dr.Lakshman could not help smiling as he fixed his freshly washed Nehru topi getting ready for the ride to the gardens. The entire evening of 69 years back was as fresh in his memory as if it was yesterday.

“If things go right, we should throw these Europeans out within 1 year.” Lakshman had replied bringing a smile on the 5 young faces who had only heard about the heaven called Freedom but had no idea what it meant.

“And what then?” Senthil again.

“We will be free! Free to go anywhere, free to talk about anything, free to do anything! That will be so Good!” Ramesh was almost flying in ecstasy as he replied. Another small lull as they all thought over the meaning again.

It was time to go and Dr.Lakshman’s heart was pounding as would a 20 year olds. “Gaurav has told me all about your dream to visit the place dadaji.” Rashmi was a good bahu. “He said how you used to make them sit and listen to all your discussions there.” “Let’s go dadaji,” Gaurav was picking up the car keys and heading for the lift. Dr.Lakshman reached the lift before his grandson making Rashmi smile. The lift got stuck on the way down.

“These Indian companies don’t know how to make things. An American lift will never stick like this. Now we need to wait for 15 minutes while someone comes to help us.” Gaurav’s statement was sad for Dr.Sharma. He remembered how he had enjoyed throwing everything foreign into the fire when he was a small kid and had hoped that one day, they will be proud to use Indian things.

“I will open my own car company.” Raghu was from a better family. “Once we are free, I will make good cars which Indians will be happy to drive. No Fords for us.”

“And who will give you the technology to make one?”

“Once our resources are our own, we can develop our own technology. We are no fools. It will take time but so what?”

“And the permission to make a company?”

“We will be free! What permission?”

The lift started and they reached the basement. Gaurav opened the door for his grandfather and they all started on the 3 hours drive to Brindavan Gardens. The plan was to stay in Mysore in the night and visit Mysore palace next morning along with a couple of other places and come back. Dr.Lakshman had no interest in all those.

Senthil interjected “I will become a policeman. And I will not harass anyone like they do now.”

“They don’t do it on purpose Senthil. Its just the Britishers that make them use force”

“So I will not use any.”

“Senthil, get some real work. Once we are free, why will we need the police in the first place?” laughed Manju.

“Dadaji, you should stay in Bangalore. Its great with such good weather. Delhi has nothing now.” Gaurav got Dr.Lakshman back to the present.

“Why don’t you two shift to Delhi? You will have the full family there.”

“Its so unsafe dadaji. Specially for women. Just yesterday, a close friend of mine was crying on the phone while speaking with me because she had been really badly mistreated by some co-passengers in the Metro. And that too in a place where the Chief Minister is a lady.”

Dr.Sharma nodded in understanding but did not say anything. He thought, police are needed for us Indians now.

Some piping hot idlis in Kamat followed by a strong filter coffee and 3 hours of heavy blaring horns and abusive drivers later, the threesome were at the gates of Dr.Sharma’s dream destination. The place had changed completely. Long queue in front of the ticket stand awaited them. Rs.50 for a camera! Why can’t we capture our memories for free in our own country thought Dr.Sharma.

The grass was growing upto the knees in some places with more weeds than grass. Water smelt. The layout though was just the same. Dr.Sharma went as fast as he could up the stairs to the place where they had dreamt. He was a happy kid. He could even see a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi peeking at him though a small waterfall now. Beautiful.

“But why are they not able to maintain this place?”

“There must be more than 30,000 people coming here every week. That will mean an average of Rs.4.5 lakhs plus the camera price of another 3 lakhs totalling to Rs.7.5 lakhs per week.” Rashmi was a financial analyst. “And this is excluding the royalties from the stalls inside and the parking ticket charges. But they will have to feed their own pockets first and greed has no boundaries. So nothing will be left for actual maintenance of the place.” This was slowly turning into a very depressing day indeed.

Sitting in the well trimmed garden, all 5 of them were dreaming loud about the free India.

“There will be no shortage of food.”

“Our resources will be our own.”

“Taxes that we give will be spent for our good.”

They are all still just dreams, thought Dr.Sharma sitting in the lawns which had been the setting for some lovely movies in the last few decades. Why did we go to all that trouble then? Progress and freedom seem to have reduced us to selfish, immoral people who have no respect for others.

“Lets go back home Gaurav. I am feeling tired.”

“But the musical fountain show will start in 15 minutes dadaji.”

“No, just take me back to Bangalore.” He started walking towards the gate, quite yet screaming inside.

Dr.Sharma had stopped reading the newspapers in disgust a long time back. Stories of violence and corruption were the only thing that these papers printed. He had only thought that some hope was still present somewhere but that seemed to have evaporated today.

Reaching back, he slowly changed and went back to sleep. Never ever to dream again…

Agnostics view

2011-08-08T11:44:00.001+05:30

"Please get my son to pass his exams."
"Wish I could get that promotion."
"Get me past these exams God."
"Make that lovely girl fall for me."
"Get me happiness in this marriage."

Few of the wishes that possibly go on in people's minds when in a temple....?

I call myself an agnostic (and I sincerely feel that I am) and I happened to land up in a Sai Baba temple in Bangalore yesterday with my wife. While standing there watching the innumerable number of people who were sitting / standing and chanting the hyms (which were pretty nice), I could not help buy think about the various things that all these ladies and gentlemen would be thinking or wishing for. Maybe all the above and a lot lot more. Maybe hoping that the next stock market crash will not lead to them going bankrupt. Maybe, just maybe.

The mind is a very volatile place and thoughts float around. Once through on the guesses on what will be going on in different minds, I was felt wondering if there was a single person in that gathering of possibly afew hundreds who was actually wishing for happiness for more people than himself or herself? How about wishing for a very very fast invention of a way to harness sunlight in a more renewable way? How about wishing for a mind reversal of all the people who (for their own sake) dont mind harming others (some get termed terrorists and some others are the more educated "powers of the world")?

Why not get all these card companies to come up with a day to commemorate selfless wishing where everyone will need to pray for something for the whole world for a whole day instead of focusing only on our own very very narrow and small worlds? Get your God to bend on his or her knees and actually make this world a better place? Get us agnostics to start believing by showing us the power of God which will not have something to do with some disasters somewhere?

Cheers!
Falcon

Check this out - The all New Samsung Galaxy Tab 750

2011-08-08T08:49:00.001+05:30

The brandest newest Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 (strange naming...) is coming out and you can check out the LIVE WEBCAST on my blog...

Thank you everyone!

2011-06-30T07:28:00.000+05:30

I am stunned! I am astounded! I have no words...... I didnt know people actually came to my blog and now I got my first 1000 visits! (Yes I started way back but till this year beginning, I had around 400 views so that IS something)

Thanks everyone. Hope I will be able to keep posting better quality posts in the coming future.

Cheers!
Falcon

Why am I a non-vegetarian - An economic perspective

2011-06-27T16:55:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: Anyone promoting vegetarianism may not like what I am writing below. I make no qualms about being a non-veg and I love my chicken and sea food in any form, shape or size (just make sure its cooked). I respect vegetarians (my wife is one) and I expect others to respect my eating habits so please don’t comment if you are a “I can’t hear about non-vegetarianism” type.

Ever wondered what will happen if as a lot of advertising nowadays is promoting, everyone became a vegetarian? I thought of the economics of this thing and came across two points which might see a change if this happened:

1. Jobs!

a. According to FAO (www.fao.org) there were 38 million fishermen in the world. Assuming that each household has one fisherman and 4 people, that will make a total of around 150 million people sustaining on fishing.

b. Add to the above the middlemen who purchase and sell the fish to the buyers and take the above figure to around 200 million.

c. Lets talk chicken....Did you know that there are more than a 100,000 poultry farms in Bangladesh itself! (Courtesy another FAO report) Will I be wrong in saying that some few million poultry farms exist in the world?

d. Now just add the number of retailers selling non-veg stuff including all the restaurants, the various subsidiary industries existing because of non-veg cooking....and the number of people sustaining their livelihood on non-veg DIRECTLY will go way beyond a billion in a world with total population around 7 Bn! (That is 15% of total world population...)

2. Inflation! (Yeah you heard me right...!)

· While in India, it is reported that around 40% of the population is vegetarian, this January, 2010 article (http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/vegetarian-populations-around-the-world-1725231.html) says that around 60 million other people are vegetarians. Add 40% of 1.2 Bn Indians which makes the figure go up to around a billion. So that makes around 6 billion non-vegetarians.

· Is it safe to assume that a non-vegetarian has non-veg once a day? (on an average I know of people who cannot survive without non-veg while others have this once in 2-3 days). I know for sure that this is a very very conservative estimate....

· Now also assume that non-veg accounts for 30% of the plate contents which will give it a share of around 10% of your food basket.

· Now consider all the 6 billion non-veggies convert to vegetarianism...the 10% of their food basket will be converted to vegetables.

· The cost of vegetables will automatically double and more... just do the math. I am no economist!

So unless you have jobs to give to a billion extra people and can ensure that the vegetable demand can be met, I will suggest look at more important things to do that convert people to vegetarianism.

Falcon

Taking a Play School Franchise? Beware...

2011-06-17T18:41:00.000+05:30

Have you heard of the "Baby Boomers"??? This referred to the people born just after the end of WW-II in the next decade or so which provided a sudden spike in the world population. (Refer wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer) OK...so what?

In a freakonomics inspired article, I will try to connect my post title to the above topic...so here goes...

Baby Boomers were not just an event but a whole phenomenon specially in Europe and America. As these babies reached various stages in life - namely teenage, adoloscence, marriage etc etc they resulted in expansion / creation of industries which were either non-existent or did not have much relevance before then. The marketeers had "reinforced a sense of generational distinctiveness" into the generation and resulted in getting huge profits for themselves. Of course the parents stopped the production plants and the population explosion was halted...

Something similar happened in India around 10-15 years back. Its called "Information Technology". The phenomenon was huge and within just few years, every middle class family had some relative who had graduated and then gone to either Bangalore or Pune and was working either "in software" or "in BPO".

These ladies and gentlemen had very similar backgrounds. Their parents had held either government posts or had a small business of their own. They had been brought up with the constant "get settled" ringing sound in their ears. They had seen the "neighbour's son" going to America and making a fortune. They had tried their best to study and get good marks so that they could also follow that neighbor's son...and then suddenly Mr.Narayanmurthy and his counterparts elsewhere had blessed them with the IT Revolution. Not only did these people start dreaming of having a "well settled" life and be what their parents had always hoped they will be but they also realized that they could get a lot better for their kids... They had enough to spare to see the children getting good education and then possibly going on to do big things....

The result of the IT revolution???

The Mall culture boomed. I still remember the first time I went to PVR Anupam in Saket, Delhi in 1994 and realized that it had 4 halls in one place...AND there was a pizza parlor and few other fast food eateries on the ground floor and I felt....WOW!!!! Again, I came to Bangalore in 2006 and possibly the only few places we could go to on weekends were Forum mall / Garuda mall / Cunningham road. Within 5 years, there is a mall on every corner...I can see one from the balcony of my apartment! Of course, most of these constructions and paper works had started some years back.
McDonalds and KFC's mushroomed. Yeah....again I will attribute it solely to the tremendous spending power of the young crowd. They got what they wanted and these were the "in" things....so was your next door CCD which is now as frequent in Bangalore (and Kolkata and Mumbai and Delhi and even to some extent in Guwahati) as a mom & pop store!

Then what happened..? As these were developing, the "IT folks" started getting married. And who better to get married to than someone who understands your work as well as you. Hence marry "Renu aunty's daughter who is also working in Bangalore" (as told to me by a friend who was reciting his mom's statement)...

And up came the 2BHK (Bedroom, Hall, Kitchen flats) and the 3 BHK apartments in multistoreyed "societies". These provide amenities like parking for your car, security and if you are planning a little upper class lifestyle - a clubhouse with maybe a swimming pool, gym etc etc etc....and of course a play area for your kids. Initially these were available for prices as low as Rs.30 lacs which have now climbed up to a crore or more for the place within 5-6 years!

What next? These are the current phenomena which have been growing rapidly...:

Play Schools...popular play schools are now distributing franchisees like they were available at a dime a dozen and they are finding enough suitors as well who are willing to invest in their own business. This started around 8-10 years back (around the time the first "IT folks" were getting married and having their kids???)
Kids' birthday party theme based companies (or whatever I may call them)....you get everything your kid needs here...and not just for the parties, even international children brands are jumping into India now.
International Schools which are gaining rapid popularity for those dreamy eyed parents who want to give everything that they could not get for their children.... Walking past some houses yesterday, I actually saw an "International School" inside a 2500 sqft apartment!!!!! (It was my inspiration for this article so I should not complain)

Will this phenomena stick? Going by past record, I will say it definitely will move on to something for teens maybe in another 5 years......and marriages in another 10-15......

So will you like a Play School franchise? Or maybe open a marriage hall in the same location to cater to these "IT BOOMERS"...?

Magadha – Sublimity Forgotten – Part 4: Escaping from the Naxal menace

2011-04-19T21:18:00.000+05:30

Prologue: While doing some sort of googling on my thought process and how it should come about, I came across a very very interesting open letter written to Mr.Chidambaram. Kudos to Mr.Arun Agrawal. Here is the link.

Last part after the long monotones in the previous one must be a good feeling for few people who might have bothered to read it… it did help me a lot though…

Understood that their do exist some factions who are terrorists in the true sense of the word and I seriously feel that they should be wiped out with the use of any sort of force which may be required. On the other hand, there are majority of the people in these areas who have taken up arms or are supporting the “cause” just because they feel that the governments who are supposed to represent them are not just. Of course, education helps since you get a more open mind to thinking….but how many governments have seriously made any effort to educate? It will take extra effort because all these people have always lived without the need for any education other than how to survive in jungles.

Again, I will in no way say that mining in these areas should be banned in any way. 200,000 crores is not a small amount in any way and this is the amount of production that is estimated to have happened in 2010-11. Mining should be taken up but it should come with some clauses:

1. Clause 1: Equal profit sharing by the people of the area and the labor. The money may not be given directly to them but should be used for land development after the mine is closed and bring about self sufficiency and education to the people of the area. COMPLETE transparency required in all these activities.

2. Clause 2: Health and hygiene should be properly maintained in the mines for the people working there.

What (in my view) is needed is to handle this entire operation with a carrot and stick approach. Of course the most essential thing is the leader and his team should be clean in that no monetary gains of any sort should be available to them. Their asset holdings should be carefully monitored by an independent charge for which they should give all data required at any point of time.

Post this, the tribals should be allowed to appoint their own committees to assess each area’s potential in mining and what they require from the mine holders. These committees should be assisted by authorized scientists who will support the functioning.

After this exercise, with representation from all stakeholders, and time-bound due diligence, way out for mining activities should be proposed. (I am sure my two clauses above will find their way into these..)

Again the exercise above should lead to two things:

1. Mining will be more legitimate and illegal mining will be reported by locals more easily since they know legal mines will give them more stake.

2. Tribes will have more confidence in the work being done for them and they will show more readiness in supporting the center.

Once confidence is brought back, helping local people build basic infrastructure by providing with support (not completely financial since we know how much of it lands up with the naxals). Building hospitals (with local ways of treatment incorporated), schools, ensuring scholarships for capable students, providing with ways of living and earning by interacting more with the world outside will help a lot…. And frankly, who will have a problem with this? And if someone does, ask them what they want and why…and give it (unless it is some stupid grant which never finds its way to the place where it is intended to reach).

Over time, as local support for naxalism reduces, the few terrorists can be herded and punished though I don’t think that will be an issue if everything goes to plan…

Simple solution? I don’t think so but definitely a start can be made…who knows something simpler might just come up.

Magadha – Sublimity Forgotten – Part 3: Political turmoil and Corruption in Post-Independence era

2011-04-19T21:15:00.000+05:30

While talking of Magadha region (and particularly Jharkhand) post Independence, it becomes essential to discuss the political situation in Bihar till 2000 and what prompted the entire split of the states. My comments as till now will be based on internet searches and my own inferences based on these findings.

Taking this entire part in 3 chapters to discuss:

1. Politics in Bihar from 1947 till 2000.

2. Reasons for Bihar – Jharkhand split.

3. Jharkhand post 2000.

Political turmoil in Bihar till 2000

Bihar (including present Bihar and greater Jharkhand) had been the seat of development and education in India till Independence. Most of the movements against the British rule had also started there prominent being the Champaran Satyagrah (Civil Disobedience Movement) of Mahatma Gandhi along with the numerous tribal revolts which were mentioned in previous parts. Some of the most advanced universities of medieval world were in Bihar.

Post Independence, Bihar has been at the center of some strange power struggles between the central and state governments. Bihar immediately after Independence was governed by two great Gandhians: Sri Krishna Sinha (Sri Babu) and Anugrah Narayan Sinha. These two were members of the Indian National Congress (INC) and ruled the state as Chief Minister and deputy Chief Minister. They have always been regarded for their unimpeachable and highly uplifting integrity which is also very clearly visible in the recently released book “Freedom & Beyond” which has correspondence between Nehru and Sri Babu. Bihar was in safe hands till 1961 when Sri Babu died while CM. Krishna Ballabh Sahay took the reins of the state in 1963 after which for another 4 years, Bihar was OK when Ballabh babu who just happened to be the only CM of Bihar from the now Jharkhand constituency of Hazaribagh. He is also known as the author of the bill which promoted banishment of Zamindari system. Post this, Bihar was predominantly ruled by CM’s who were populist in nature including the famous B.P.Mandal who was CM for around 48 days. His suggestions for OBC reservations led to the subsequent downfall of the V.P.Singh government a long time afterwards. After Ballabh babu, in 10 years, 12 CM’s took power interspersed with President’s rule twice! And most of these were from INC. This didn’t stop here…. From 1980 to 1990, another 6 took power (all from INC) before the famous Laloo Prasad Yadav. It is safe to assume that when you are not sure of your seat even inside your own party, what will you do for the state… Bihar went from being a very well governed state to slowly go down in its capabilities. The result: from 1980-1990 (data of state-wise GDP’s at link below) when South Indian states and even Maharasthra and numerous other states were growing by around 8-10% per annum, Bihar managed to even show a negative GDP growth in 2 years. The situation was even worse in tribal populated Southern Bihar (now Jharkhand) since almost all the CM’s were from the Northern parts who focused on their vote banks in the North to garner votes by providing any development that was coming to these places. The situation was not helped by the fact that Bihar accounts for 54 seats in the Lok Sabha which assures that power in Bihar becomes very important for the one holding it.

Bihar was slowly getting converted to the state which provided cheap labor to the rest of the country. (I still remember some painters who had come to our house in Delhi around 10 years back. When my mother asked if they were from Bihar, they scrounged and started at her and commented: “Do we look like Biharis to you? Don’t abuse us.”) It was this anti-Congress wave which was developing till 1990 that Janata Dal managed to come to power in 1995 on the pretext of being a party “for the backward” headed by a Yadav. Due to continuous caste based politics first on the back of the oppressed “lower castes” and then with the support of Muslim leaders (who were 20% of Bihar population), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) managed to hold onto Bihar till 2005 even when Laloo made a mockery of Indian political system by promoting his wife Rabri Devi to the CM post. Too many times post that, she has shown her complete ignorance of the needs of a CM… a very very sad successor to the great leaders of the past.

Reasons for Bihar – Jharkhand split

In March, 1998 after 2 very unstable years of United Front’s rule at the center, BJP (through NDA) came to power in Delhi under the leadership of Mr.Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Two years before this, in 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and Samata Party together dented the Janata Dal – Congress combines power in Bihar by taking a huge slice off the combines’ Lok Sabha seats from Bihar. Samata Party itself gained 6 seats in Bihar itself. This strength gained in 1996 was even further strengthened in 1998 and in 1999 when even deeper inroads were made into Bihar.

Once Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power (stable power unlike 1998), Bihar was high on the agenda. While the demand for a separate state of Jharkhand had always been present since Independence, it had lost its sheen during the political turmoils. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) had come to power in 10 Vidhan Sabha seats out of 324…all 10 in South Bihar on the call that they will demand for an independent Jharkhand. The NDA government at the center also knew that with the muscle power of JD which was in power in Bihar, it will be difficult to break into the state where the BJP had just 41 seats unless the state and hence Laloo’s power was divided.

Hence after a very controversial bill was tabled and passed as Bihar Reorganization Act in 2000 Jharkhand was separated. A poll conducted during that time actually showed that even people of Jharkhand did not fully support the division because they felt that even though that area was far richer in natural resources, separation from Patna will completely hide them in country political scenario. BJP on the other hand felt that even though JMM (allied to Congress) will become strong in Jharkhand, it will be easier to pry away Jharkhand than Bihar. (Things turned out to be completely different though with JD(U) – BJP combine coming back to power under Nitish Kumar in Bihar while BJP and JMM keep switching in Jharkhand.) This resulted in Jharkhand becoming the state in 2000.

Jharkhand post 2000

Filled with corrupt politicians who suddenly found themselves in power in a state after the split from Bihar, Jharkhand went from bad to worse. Mining has been promoted aggressively on the pretext of giving jobs to the tribals while MNC’s have benefited by cheap and readily available labor and the large quantities of minerals inside the ground. Greasing of palms to get such opportunities has been hugely beneficial for the companies as well as the politicians.

High levels of corruption in other states of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh (Cchattisgarh), Karnataka related to mining did not help matters at all resulting in what is now the situation.

According to the data available on the website of Ministry of Mines, last 5 years have seen double in value of production minerals to almost 200,000 crores estimated in 2010-11. This on-shore production is predominantly taking place in 10 states of which Naxal infested states are 6 accounting for 56% of total on-shore production that is reported. Newspapers and articles are full of cases of illegal mines in these areas which are not even reported and have been the cause of the real trouble between the local tribes and the governments.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in the following:

1. The land which “legally” belonged to the government was taken away from the tribes who had been staying there for centuries.

2. Tribes were categorized as below poverty line and used as cheap labor by MNC’s to use in mines under extremely dangerous conditions.

3. Not only did the mines result in elimination of forests which were the livelihood of the tribes, but they resulted in numerous respiratory and other diseases in the tribals.

4. While the government watched from the sidelines, the police was used to curb any violence in these tribals.

What happened was the resurgence of Naxal activities in all these areas since the people started looking up to these armed militants to provide them with some respite from the continuous pressures of the local politicians. While Naxalites did extort money from the local tribesmen, they also provided them with support from the police which was man-handling the ladies and torturing the people on pretext of providing protection to the company executives.

Tribals had never been averse to taking up arms against oppression. This has been common in history for the last thousands of years. Hence any feeling of being oppressed is bound to have its affects in these areas unlike the plains of Bihar and UP where oppression by politicians is usually tolerated without any thought of physical violence. Given the changing climate and the feeling that even when released from the clutches of the British, the tribes had to continue to fight for the land which they rightfully claimed as theirs. What we have is a highly intensified and aggravated situation further fueled by the claims of politicians that these are power struggles where Maoists are trying to create terror by oppressing the weak.

As far as I have read, the only people these Maoists seem to have targeted till date are the following:

1. Politicians

2. Police and other armed forces which they feel are representatives of the government

3. MNC’s

Anyone else had any problems? Do let me know…

All the 3 categories above represent the people who are the “oppressors” in this case… who are now becoming the oppressed. Power corrupts and that is what is happening with the Naxals as well who have started making money by using power.

Unfortunately, the people who are best suited to correct the state of these tribes who have taken up arms are the ones who are guilty of having put them in this place. Hence any solution that might come will have to have one thing at the core: Upliftment of the Tribes. Otherwise all efforts will be futile and only superficial.

Magadha – Sublimity Forgotten – Part 2: Historical accolades and ways of living in Greater Jharkhand

2011-04-16T16:09:00.000+05:30

Jharkhand means the Land of Forests. It literally is that. Go on a train journey through this area (e.g. Kolkata to Ranchi and then onwards to Bhubaneswar) and you will know what I mean. It has always remained the land of forests / bushes with abundant wildlife and other natural resources including water and minerals below the ground. Centuries of forests have led to vast deposits of coal and other minerals in this area…but we will come to that later.

So by any wildest imagination, what do you expect a small tribe staying in a forest during the medieval period to be doing? Want help with imagination? Think of an Animal Planet episode on behavior of a pride of Lions in the jungle.

They will surely be hunting for food with metal weapons. They will also be very carefully guarding their women and children from other marauding tribes since that’s what a person in a jungle does. They will be fighting very very aggressively for every small piece of land which they will again guard since they will have a direct claim to the game which is available on that land. Since most of their life is dependent on land, they will by nature have to be aggressive in behavior. (I am sure the guys who were not so domineering found themselves demoted to somewhere lower down the hierarchy.) These “heroes” of the tribe will get the best of the women and the lion’s share of the food. They will possibly also get power to become leaders or elect leaders, take decisions regarding main events in the tribe, attack other tribes if required (predominantly for land I am sure)… This feeling of mine has also been reflected in a study on tribes done by a CountryStudies group¹.

Now extrapolate this nature over many centuries and what do you get? Small to medium sized tribes which have learnt to fend for themselves while living with their natural surroundings which are forests. They also surely love their forests since these forests are the ones which give them food and shelter.

Thus safe to say that right from the period of Peopling of India² till around the 16^th century when the Mughals invaded India, these tribes (or adivasis in hindi) were living in complete harmony with nature….and among themselves? They really didn’t care for anyone outside the realm of their area which was as small or as big as they wanted depending on possibly just one thing and that was the availability of food. Simple life. Truly…

And how do these tribes behave now? Exactly in the same way as they have behaved for the last 50-60 thousand years! The Gods they worship, the culture they follow, the food they eat (and even how they procure it and cook it)……nothing seems to have changed drastically in so many thousand years.

Some more historical facts:

1. The early Indian dynasties – Mauryas, Guptas and others did not bother the tribals. They allowed these to live the life that they liked and the entire relationship was very symbiotic. The famous Swami Valmiki is actually known to be an adivasi.

2. Mughals were the first who truly tried to usurp the lands belonging to these tribes. I could not find anything much on how that went for either the mughals or the tribals. Numerous references do exist to the use of Mughal architecture in tribal areas.

3. From the beginning of the British rule in India, the British had a very difficult time trying to keep the land which they had claimed under the Jagirdari system where they appointed a Jagirdar for the land and asked the tribes to pay taxes. The revolts of all these tribes³ led to some of the bloodiest revolts against British rule. Though not as famous as the 1857 uprising, each of these was difficult for the British to suppress. (Hindsight: If only the tribes had learnt to live together instead of fighting each other, they would probably never have been controlled by the British.)

Clearly, can we assume that if their land or livelihood were threatened, these tribes would take up arms and fight till death? Of course, that is what they have been taught by their ancestors…just like we have been taught to earn our livelihood and support our family by taking care of the basic requirements as well as some luxuries if possible.

Some links referred to in this part:

1. http://countrystudies.us/india/70.htm

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopling_of_Indi

3. http://swapsushias.blogspot.com/2010/09/major-tribal-uprisings-in-british-india.html

Magadha – Sublimity Forgotten – Part 1: Jharkhand Then & Now

2011-04-14T16:22:00.000+05:30

Magadha – a region which finds reference in almost all main texts of Indian history, a region which brought in the era which was called the “Golden Period” of Indian history when Indian economy was the largest in the world, a region which gave birth to Jainism and Buddhism both of which promote peace and tranquility among all people irrespective of their religion, a region which gave birth to the Maurya as well as the Gupta dynasties in India, a region which was home to some of the most scientifically & culturally advanced civilizations in the world for almost 2000 years.

And what is Magadha today? This area which encompassed (roughly) the eastern part of Madhya Pradesh (now Cchattisgarh), Southern Bihar (now Jharkhand which is the major part of Magadha), little of present Bihar, Northern Orissa & western parts of the modern West Bengal which is a land-locked, mineral rich, culturally rich, forested, tribal land. What is it today? Assocham (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India) puts Jharkhand at the bottom of development in all ways – way below national averages in terms of investments, infrastructure developments or any other growth statistic that you may decide to use. The other parts of the Magadha, which have fallen into other states thanks to the Divide & Rule doctrine of the British or the political push & pull of the Indian politicians, do not fair too well but find themselves a little better condition but not too great. Despite that, Jharkhand continues to be the leading producer of mineral wealth in the country, endowed as it is with vast variety of minerals like iron ore, coal, copper ore, mica, bauxite, graphite, limestone, and uranium. The area is also known for its vast forest resources.

The Naxal-Maoist “insurgency” has been blamed for most issues which have been infesting this area including any forms of development which the government has claimed to have tried. But what happened to this great land which remained the thorn in the British rule in India for more than a century? Does anyone know that the famed “Divide & Rule” policy of Lord Curzon was implemented in its full viciousness in this area to curb the continuous rebellion of the numerous tribes which refused to be part of the colonial rule? These tribes resulted in the bloodiest and longest battles which the British had to fight for their supremacy compared even to the Boer wars in Africa if taken in entirety. Yes! That is how aggressive these 5.3% of Indians can become if their area is challenged!

In this 4 part series, I intend to discuss the historical significance of this land which resulted in the people being what they are, the political climate which resulted in the downfall of this area post Independence leading to what it has currently become and my very modest and un-experienced ideas in how I feel the ancient Magadha can rise like a Phoenix – again to spread its wings and help the entire country sour.

Disclaimers:

1. I do not have any education in history apart from the classes in medium school.

2. I have been to Jamshedpur and Ranchi and apart from little travel in Northern Orissa, I have not been to any areas which may be termed as tribal areas in this belt (even though I will love to go at least once) hence all of my thoughts have come from readings and my own beliefs.

3. I am a staunch protestor against any acts of corruption (an irony since I am also an Entrepreneur) and in more occasions than one; this protest may come across very strongly in some of my sentences.

4. In all my references to Jharkhand, what I will mean is the definition of Greater Jharkhand which lot of people recognizes as the area including parts of West Bengal, Orissa and Cchattisgarh since these areas have the same ways of living to some extent separated from how the people in other parts of these respective states live.

2011-04-11T15:38:00.001+05:30

Some more things in Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill.... I have copied this and added my comments in red..... My signature from today is changed to Jai Hind!

1. Who is Anna Hazare?
An ex-army man. Fought 1965 Indo-Pak War

2. What's so special about him?

He built a village Ralegaon Siddhi in Ahamad Nagar district, Maharashtra

3. So what?

This village is a self-sustained model village. Energy is produced in the village itself from solar power, biofuel and wind mills. (More details on http://www.annahazare.org/ralegan-siddhi.html)

In 1975, it used to be a poverty clad village. Now it is one of the richest village in India. It has become a model for self-sustained, eco-friendly & harmonic village.

4. Ok,...?

This guy, Anna Hazare was awarded Padma Bhushan and is a known figure for his social activities.

5. Really, what is he fighting for?

He is supporting a cause, the amendment of a law to curb corruption in India.

6. How that can be possible?

He is advocating for a Bil, The Lok Pal Bill (The Citizen Ombudsman Bill), that will form an autonomous authority who will make politicians (ministers), beurocrats (IAS/IPS) accountable for their deeds.

7. It's an entirely new thing right..?

In 1972, the bill was proposed by then Law minister Mr. Shanti Bhushan. Since then it has been neglected by the politicians and some are trying to change the bill to suit their theft (corruption).

8. Oh.. He is going on a hunger strike for that whole thing of passing a Bill ! How can that be possible in such a short span of time?

The first thing he is asking for is: the government should come forward and announce that the bill is going to be passed. (The bill has been now taken into consideration within 4 “long” days)

Next, they make a joint committee to DRAFT the LOK PAL BILL. 50% goverment participation and 50% public participation. Because you cant trust the government entirely for making such a bill which does not suit them.

9. Fine, What will happen when this bill is passed?

A LokPal will be appointed at the centre. He will have an autonomous charge, say like the Election Commission of India. In each and every state, Lokayukta will be appointed. The job is to bring all alleged party to trial in case of corruptions within 1 year. Within 2 years, the guilty will be punished. Not like, Bofors scam or Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, that has been going for last 25 years without any result. (Another previous link that I had posted though gives a completely different point. The author says that the Lokpal can only give their recommendations to the speaker who will then decide what needs to be done with the guilty and / or the recommendations. He can also throw the file in the gutter if he feels like it...)

10. Is he alone? Whoelse is there in the fight with Anna Hazare?

Baba Ramdev, Ex. IPS Kiran Bedi, Social Activist Swami Agnivesh, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and many more.

Prominent personalities like Aamir Khan are supporting his cause.

11. Ok, got it. What can I do?

At least we can spread the message. How?

Putting status message, links, video, changing profile pics, forwarding this Email, spreading the news over casual chat, etc. (I don’t know if that is sufficient. How about REFUSING to pay bribes for a change, not breaking any rules wherever we are and whatever we are doing? How about adopting a village like Mr.Hazare did without a single person coming to know about it till he had shown what he meant?)

At least we can support Anna Hazare and the cause for uprooting corruption from India.

At least we can hope that his Hunger Strike does not go in vain.

At least we can pray for his good health.

(A very pessimistic Mr.Badal on the bill has something completely difference to say though: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Badal-No-Lokpal-Bill-can-end-corruption/articleshow/7940063.cms)

P.S.: A few more details about Anna Hazares Fast and Jan Lok Pal Bill. Please read it.

Salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill
Drafted by Justice Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal, this Bill has been refined on the basis of feedback received from public on website and after series of public consultations. It has also been vetted by and is supported by Shanti Bhushan, J M Lyngdoh, Kiran Bedi, Anna Hazare etc. It was sent to the PM and all CMs on 1st December. However, there is no response.

1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up.

2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.

3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore. (Again read my comment somewhere above.) Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.

4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.

5. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.

6. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a months time. You could also report any case
of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or
panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

7. But wont the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That wont be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.

8. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.

9. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.

Jai Hind!

Lokpal Bill - The irony

2011-04-09T10:59:00.001+05:30

Lokpal bill seems to have captured the limelight...and absolutely correct in doing that since it directly tries to fight the one biggest problem facing our nation...

This link below gives a viewpoint of a judge (retired) of the Indian judicial system.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-01-07/news/29382630_1_lokpal-bill-chief-justice-or-judge-fight-corruption

Hoping for a better India...

Falcon

In your face Mr.Thakarey

2011-04-06T17:34:00.000+05:30

Dear Raj and Uddhav, A Chandigarh lad, a jharkhand captain and a Delhi boy won the world cup for India and dedicated it to a marathi legend. Your regional hatred has failed.

Excerpt from one of many mails floating around post our victory....I liked this the most.

Loosening our purse strings...for the right things?

2011-04-05T11:39:00.000+05:30

As India becomes World Champions in cricket, no one wants to be seen as the spoil sport and gifts and cash have started raining on the Men in Blue. The Delhi Government announced a cash reward of Rs.2 crore for MS Dhoni....he does not belong to Delhi and neither does he have anything whatsoever to do with Delhi. But who cares...? Mrs.Dixit decided that doing this will possibly make her more famous so there she went giving away our money to people who don’t need it any more than Bill Gates. Karnataka government is giving plots in Bangalore to each player. Why????

Why not put the same money to possibly sponsor some needy and potential children through higher education? Rs.1 crore will be enough to even get someone through Harvard Business School and then make him / her work for the country in some way. This will have much longer benefits.

At the cost of sounding sarcastic, please give the money and gifts to people who need them. Our players are great and they have shown this numerous number of times in and off the cricket field. I am sure they will get a lot more than this through a single sponsorship contract they sign with the numerous corporates who are queuing up on their doors.

Why do we always have to bend over backwards?

2011-03-31T17:53:00.000+05:30

The clash of all clashes happened and we all watched India & Pakistan fighting it out on the cricket field for the fifth time in world cups and India coming out winners the fifth time. The celebrations started even before the match was over and continue. So do the discussions of what took place on and off the field with almost every Indian believing that he has been instrumental in the win in one way or the other… a friend of mine did not see the match because he feels that whenever he watches, India loses. That’s cricket for India my friends and that is why even though I intend to make this a socio-politically driven blog, I continue to blog about cricket.

One small feeling that started hurting me as soon as the teams won their qf clashes to ensure this semi-final clash…one small thing that our beloved PM did that made me feel sad. And what better place to showcase the same than my blog (my blessings to the person who invented the internet).

Mr.Singh invited Mr.Gilani to watch the proceedings on the field in the stadium while having a round of informal dialogue to kick-start the peace initiative which had been lying on the back burner since 26/11. India had then proudly said that no dialogue was possible till Pakistan mends its ways and even cricket matches between the two nations had been put aside.

Then what happened?

Did Pakistan mend its ways? Last year has been one of the worst in the recent history of J&K with terrorism and riots wrecking havoc with innocent people’s lives in the state. While USA continues to give money to Pakistan on the pretext of fighting terror, Pakistan continues to arm itself with the latest in warfare openly stating that this is for the sole purpose of curbing any attacks from India. (India has never ever spoken of any such attacks and has never shown by action that it intends to carry out any such acts of aggression.) Pakistan has not made a single statement in these last few years that it wants to have peace with its much larger neighbor.

Then why did we bend backwards again, Mr.Singh? I understand that having peace talks with Pakistan is good and we should always try to keep peace with our neighbors at least. But no number of such talks have ever had any effect on how Pakistan behaves (mis-behaves). Then why talk of peace? Or for that matter, why talk at all? I would say, why not just ignore Pakistan? Yes, we share a common history but our good neighbors have never bothered to respect that past. Continuous dialogue between the two countries only helps in bringing Pakistan to the center stage in world politics. India does not need this for any sort of publicity in the international forum. We are big enough. Then why not just ignore Pakistan and continue on our own journey to super power status in the world. (Please note that I do not support any security lapses on our part. That is a matter of the defense of our nation which is of utmost importance.)

We have better things to think about. A permanent seat in the Security Council is one for that matter. This Pakistani bickering is not helping that in any way. Tonnes of internal conflicts need to be resolved. Corruption needs to be fought and eradicated. Why not just ignore the nation which cannot stand on its own anyways?

And if any of our politicians need better targets that the ones I have mentioned in the previous para, how about investing and focusing on science and R&D, education, astrophysics, space travel, modernization of our agricultural system, ensuring less dependence on monsoons, alternate sources of energy, infrastructure….. the list is endless….it’s the focus that is missing.

Why Does India need Sachin Tendulkar?

2011-03-25T22:49:00.002+05:30

Which Indian does not know this man who turns 38 on 24^th April, 2011? This little master who made his test debut at a ripe age of 16 in 1989 when he toured Pakistan with the Indian team captained by Kris Srikkanth. With surprise did I realize that it took the Master Blaster 79 ODI’s to score his first One Day century but he really made up for this delay…and continues to do so. His records and exploits in the cricket field continue to be discussed across the world and have become part of the cricket folklore. My mentioning them in any number of words here will not do any credit to this great cricketer since my vocabulary is not vast enough to encompass the number of adjectives that I will need.

Then why am I talking about this great man? This post is my humble way to show gratitude to this great man who through his well-earned popularity in the cricket field helped a huge country stay united. Cricket happ

ens to be the only game which has a huge and ardent fan following in this country of a billion. Post our famous world cup win in 1983, Indians became even more attracted towards

cricket while blowing the death knell for hockey which was also as famous (if not more) till then. Unfortunately, our great country through the 80’s, 90’s & 2000’s have been torn by numerous internal strives each of which was worse than the previous one. The 1984 riots followed by the murder of Rajeev Gandhi and then the Babri Masjid related riots in 1992. While numerous local riots either political or regional or religion related have not done anything good for this country. Shouts of “Jai Hind” have more often than not been replaced by screams of “Jai Punjab” or “Jai Maratha” for just about every single state. Local political parties have tried (and succeeded) in dividing the states further depending on their vote banks which have further aggravated the entire balance. Telegu statesmen’s statues were broken down in Hyderabad which is supposed to be the home to the Telegu’s just because Hyderabad physically comes in a part of Andhra Pradesh called Telangana which wants itself to become a separate state to feed the coffers of some more politicians.

India takes pride in being not just a country but being an amalgamation of so many different cultures that you will see a different India almost every 100 kms that you go. This change is not just in the way people live or dress but also in social hierarchies, languages spoken, entertainment channels used…in fact the very thread of the way civilization works changes. In this origami of thought that is India, a single thread is required that will bind everyone together into a fantastic nation which is India. That essential thread has been cricket. When India plays, Indians are one. It does not matter if I am from UP or Bihar or West Bengal or Maharashtra or Jharkhand or Kashmir or Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh or Assam or Mizoram or Arunachal or any other state of this huge country. I AM AN INDIAN.

And what happens when I become a cog in the wheel of this country instead of just representing a single state / religion / political party? A hint for the answer: since the world cup 2011 started, the number of riots in the country has been reduced. Check your local newspaper if you don’t believe me and you are from India. And who made India survive the bad days of cricket when match fixing had been busted and defamed the gentleman’s game? Who else but our very own Sachin Tendulkar who not only stood his ground in the courts but also ensured that an average Indians faith in the game was not shattered by performing when it really mattered. What would have happened if in the 90’s and 2000’s when the Indian cricket team was relying only on the great 5”5’ man to provide them with a win, Sachin Tendulkar was not there? For almost 2 decades, he was holding the thread of the Indian nation on his shoulders and carrying it with some help from some other greats of course.

And when it came to a personal attack, he did not mind telling the (oh so powerful) Shiv Sena chief that he was an Indian first and then anything else. The statement took the steam out of the entire “Jai Maratha” campaign within seconds and I have not heard Mr.Thakarey Sr. giving any further anti-India remarks of this kind.

So why does India need Sachin Tendulkar? Indians needs Sachin Tendulkar to stay united. India needs Sachin Tendulkar to show to others that when time needs, we can be one.

1908 – A very very bad year for millions of people

2011-03-25T18:27:00.000+05:30

1908 was the year when the IVth Olympics took place in London. 1908 was the year when Henry Ford introduced the highly acclaimed Model-T. 1908 was the year when Wright brothers flew the first true controlled power flight bringing in the revolution in aviation. 1908 was also an year of sadness. This was the year in which the Young Turk Revolution happened which was the first precursor to WW-I. A tsunami in Italy resulted In over 70,000 dead. But these are all just very general events which impacted not much except possibly the aviation sector.

On 26^th May, 1908, the first major oil discovery of Middle East was made in Persia. This event has now culminated in the Middle East becoming the most dangerous place for a civilian to live in. With the likes of USA, China, Russia, Europe wanting every single drop of extractable oil from here, the strifes between various factions over the spoils has resulted in every single of these countries becoming a hell for the common man. I am sure that a lot of people will not mind keeping this day as a National Mourning Day as the very concept of living and life changed dramatically and has not returned to normalcy since.

And is this a sad even for just the Middle East while the rest of the world has enjoyed the benefits of getting oil cheaper and longer? With the “superpowers” trying to ensure their dominance in the region, they kept supplying various groups with arms and riches of other sorts making them richer and more powerful. Once the power came, demands increased and the country aiding and abetting these potential criminals decided to start supporting some other groups. This resulted in internal fights and the building up of terrorist groups. The famed Mr.Laden himself made most of his money from oil….and guess who he bombed to become such a well recognized name?

So lets have 26^th May as the International Mourning Day. A day which each one of us irrespective of our religion, region, caste or any other socially defining description will regret as the day when we last saw the world as nature wanted it seen…

Our PM is a silent cow….GOOOOOD

2011-03-24T16:18:00.000+05:30

A recent news article related to Mr.Gaddafi of Libya’s fame having a talk with our friendly PM Mr.Singh mentioned how G had called the situation in Libya similar to the one in Kashmir and Mr.S had made no comments on that (at least none were mentioned in any articles). There have been numerous issues both domestic as well as international where a statement from our beloved Mr.S would have not only looked good but was also required and he didn’t say anything. Sometimes, it has gone to the extent that I felt like smashing a TV somewhere (aka Mr.Ricky Ponting in a recent world cup match) but somehow managed to not.

I guess we might just come out lucky that Mr.S doesn’t have a tongue to talk about. The current political situation in the world where almost every corner of the planet is having some war or other, a world war cannot be ruled out. History has shown that USA became the world mover & shaker only after the two wars asserted his dominance over the world. Even UK bowed to such an extent that even now after decades having passed, UK is the foghorn which USA uses to express its issues. And how did USA become strong? WW-II: USA was not even a part of the war for most of the years but entered only after all the rest of the armies were either annihilated or totally tired and turned the tide in the favor of the Allies. With a WW-III, it might not be a bad idea for India to take that role. Thanks to our Silent Sardar (those two words sound like an irony together…), India has taken no sides in any international issues. While we did stay away from voting for a no-fly zone in Libya along with the other BRIC nations and Germany, while China and Russia have also gone on to demand an immediate ceasefire just 4 days later, India remains mum on the man slaughter happening in that poor North African country. Similarly, our friendly neighbor China continues to force Tibetans into all sorts of ridiculous positions and India continues to talk of the age old saying of “Hindi Chini bhai bhai…”. The Koreas keep shouting hoarse at each other supported by either China or USA and India (even though a self acclaimed super power) has no say. Entire Middle East is almost up in flames and while Mrs.Clinton is telling every single person in the entire region how US is “with them in their hour of need”, India is absent…again.

Doesn’t this give us an awesome opportunity? The entire world having already decided who they are going to support will be fighting each other and possibly nuking half the planet, we will be peacefully growing at 8%+ GDP and possibly supplying the rest of them with food and technology further enhancing our GDP. And then in the end when a stalemate is reached, we can decide which team to join and not only win the war but also become leaders of “the new nation”. Forget a permanent security council seat in UN, we will make our own UN. NATO would have been wiped out and another force based in New Delhi would have become the new peace keepers in the world.

But then again, we will possibly need a more vocal PM to decide when to finish the war since Mr.S will not be able to make that decision….or maybe Mrs.G will read this blog and decide to help him!

I wanna be rich….I wanna be a minister!

2011-03-24T16:17:00.000+05:30

At the cost of sounding really cynical, I have loads of comments to make on the different asset declaration done by our great politicians. Thanks to the Election Commission of India, each person contesting for any polls has to mandatorily declare the value of all his and his families assets. These may include land, property, cash, jewelry or any other form of assets that they may have.

The interesting things that come out of this? You will know how much each one has earned due to his / her stint while in power. A leading newspaper showed today how a regional party’s Food Ministers assets went up 780 times within 5 years while he was in power! And his explanations are that he made a lot of money on agriculture which happened on a plot of 1.1 acres!!!! I know as a fact that this is impossible even if all his money was being put back into agriculture. Mr.Minister, if you are such an awesome investor, why waste your time working as a minister earning a pittance for a salary while you can easily go on to become the next Warren Buffet? Seriously…who are you kidding?

Ohhh….and this is not just one case. The same thing reverberates across political parties, castes, genders…. Blatant use of power the results of which are audited and published while the people whose money is going into these coffers just sit and do absolutely nothing!

One simple common sensical question: Why will a wannabe politician spend crores and crores to buy votes and win if the only thing he was going to get out of the entire thing was a small salary which is also made by a junior manager of an MNC?

The Right to Speech - Are we using it right?

2011-03-20T12:44:00.000+05:30

We stay in a country where we are able to speak. We are able to voice our concerns and comment openly on public blogs and websites about how we feel. We are not scared of some government hawks pouncing on us for having said something against some of their policies. Some of us even go to the extent of condemning the presiding governments to the dungeons and asking for an out and out communist rule and still get away with it. And how do we use this awesome freedom which we don’t realize we have since we have always had it (ask your friend in China and he will tell you about this freedom which he does not have)?

Let me take some examples of how we “use” our democratic rights:

1. Children were attacked in a Bangalore suburb by stray dogs to the extent that they were unable to go to school. They wrote a letter to the BBMP (corporation) commissioner but nothing happened. Some people went and poisoned some of the dogs because not only were these dogs numbering few 10’s of packs of 10’s of dogs in each pack attacking helpless children and elders but also tearing up clothes and barking through the night due to which people were not able to sleep. What happens? PETA activists started screaming and shouting wanting the people imprisoned irrespective of the fact that these very dogs had torn to shreds a few months old baby some days back. Of course none of these activists had been around at that time.

2. Jats are a community in Haryana which till recently was unknown. Suddenly, headed by a retired army officer, the community went on a protest asking for inclusion in the 28% reserved category of OBC’s for getting government jobs. They decided to “seal” Delhi borders and ensured that people and material had a horrendous time coming into or going out of the capital. When the government did not heed to their demands, the leader (ex-army as I mentioned) actually said that even though this agitation is non-violent, the government will be responsible if it turns violent!!!!!! He even said that he will further seal the borders and deprive the capital of water, electricity and oil! WOW!!!!!!!

A small reminder to all these and many many more such “extortionists”….try this in an anarchy or a communist country like China and you will have a Tiananmen Square for which only you will be responsible.

Democratic rights are very very good but only when used properly. Unfortunately, nowhere is there correct use happening. Few years back, while I was based in the North East India, my mom called me and asked if I was fine since she heard on the news about a bomb blast in a small town called Jorhat in Assam. I was in Jorhat and there had been no blast in anyone’s recent memory that we could recall. The news channel seemingly had added a news made in the news room to fill up a slot!

We all are eating out of this democratic buffet feeling that we can use these rights in whichever way we like. Don’t we realize that we have a bill to pay in the end? And it will come with VAT and Service tax.

Irony of life?

2011-03-18T19:43:00.000+05:30

Just read a news article of another Wikileaks exposure about a bribe which a Congress MP gave to some other MP’s regarding a vote of confidence in the Indian parliament. The online article which was posted 3 hours ago had been commented on by around 350 people each of who have shown their discontent at the abject state of affairs.

I am a proud Indian who has always stayed in India and has travelled to every single state (seriously) in this huge country. I am also an entrepreneur having a small but successful business running in one of the fastest growing metropolitans of this country. I have also served as a manager in an MNC and have had my share of trysts with the various government agencies – whether it was for a registration or some certificate or a water connection or any other thing under the sun. Never have I seen an official not asking me for money.

Any Indian road will have traffic offenders passing by at the rate of a dozen per minute. Stop anyone and ask what he will do if caught and the prompt reply will be, “A Rs.50 note can take care of it”.

My question to the 350 comments in that column: If you are an Indian, have you never paid a bribe? I agree that Tata’s possibly might say that they have not, but then they don’t need to. They are too big for a government official to mess around with. What about the millions of others?

I seriously believe that India is one country which can never be rocked by stock markets or economic meltdowns because of which all the economists get their bread and butter. Our parallel economy is too big and its all because of these bribes.

I am in no way approving this very wrong phenomenon. What I am asking is: WHAT GIVES US A RIGHT TO COMMENT ON OTHERS WHEN WE ARE NOT COMING FROM HEAVEN OURSELVES? Movies like Lage Raho Munnabhai were seen, appreciated, given some Filmfare awards (I think) and forgotten to be shown again by some TV channel on the next Gandhi Jayanti but when will we start doing what we preach?

I agree again that I am myself to blame as well but I do have a business to run for which I give my share of bribes. But if I refuse to, what will happen to the people who are working for me? They have a family to feed as well…right?

I wish I had a solution to this menace. But this solution has to come from the politicians who unfortunately are the last people who will try to find a solution. Why else will they be willing to spend crores of rupees to get a seat in the government? Definitely not for the measly salary which they get. Right?

Sorry Mother Nature

2011-03-11T22:27:00.002+05:30

Sorry Mother Nature..... for we have sinned.

You provided us with food.... and we butchered you for minerals

You provided us with air..... and we suffocated your atmosphere

You provided us with land.... and we bombed it with our inventions.....

We confess Mother Nature.... that we have sinned....

We pray to God when none of us have seen him....

Why dont we pray you when you show us what you can do?

Take pity on us Mother Nature....since we have sinned....

Within moments whole cities in Japan were washed away today...

Even the US & China...supposedly the strongest nations.... were left clueless and ashamed by a single puff of breeze by nature...

But will we learn?

Heartfelt condolences with all those who have suffered from the ill-effects of what everyone has contributed to. Yes, we can claim that all this is because of the moon and how it is at its closest to Earth, but is that seriously the only reason?

Please learn Earthlings....Please Please Please

The numbers crunched...

2011-03-10T21:56:00.001+05:30

Great time to be an Indian! It’s the cricket world cup being played in India and our very own team has not lost a single match till now!!! I know my profile states that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this English sport which is a fetish for every single Indian who I know of…. But well…. I AM an Indian.

So the calculations go like this:

Group A: Australia seem leaders with 3 more matches to go, two of which are against Canada and Kenya – two associate teams who have shown absolutely no interest in putting up a good performance. But the rankings in this group and hence the possibility of playing a “strong” or “weak” team from Group B is still anyone’s guess. If other results go as per plan, two matches: New Zealand (@ 8 points) vs Sri Lanka (@7 points) on 18^th March and Australia (@9 points) vs Pakistan (@8 points) on 19^th March will decide the entire group. (The points have been taken assuming no upset results in that group since these 4 have to play against either of Kenya, Zimbabwe or Canada till then.) So well…..forget everything else and wait for 18^th!

Group B: Now this is a group in which apart from India, no one seems to have a confirmed place in the QF….we should thank the wonderful Irish team for this confusion which is now to follow…..England have to play Bangladesh and West Indies…West Indies play Ireland, England and India…South Africa play India, Ireland and Bangladesh…Ireland play WI, SA & Netherlands…India of course play SA and WI. Assuming all was normal and Ireland was behaving itself, the QF should have had India, SA, England and WI not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately, with Ireland playing the way they are, they will definitely defeat the Dutch and they hold a very good chance of putting one up against the WI or SA..if they pull one of these, they will end up with 6 points and if India manage to defeat the team (out of WI / SA) who they defeat, Ireland would actually reach the semis ahead of that poor test playing nation. Of course, I am assuming that England will defeat Bangladesh which is a big assumption knowing the health problems of England and the fact that the Bangladeshi team will be itching to prove themselves as a test playing nation…..

I have a thousand more nos going on in my head and have not even considered the NRR to decide who goes in…..but well, I am happy that India is safe and can finally let Ashwin play. I am sure Piyush Chawla will not mind that now since he can go home happy that he single handedly got India into the QF’s (hope you understand that this is a Euphemism)……

I am back...another touch and go? Or......

2011-03-09T17:46:00.003+05:30

Hey I am back! And surprisingly I not only remember my passwords but I also remember how to type!

Anyways, it has been some time since a very close friend of mine has been writing her blog and it has been inspiring me to start penning in my blog once again...so hopefully....lets see...... After all I do keep leaving all those comments on various news sites regarding political and social issues...and with the way I am trying to tinker with becoming an entrepreneur...who knows I might have something good to write about....

Anyways...lets hope I keep returning now... Thanks Tina!

Am I Lucky?

2009-08-02T23:30:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer: This post is only for keeping track of my thoughts....just like all other of my posts....

A very close friend of mine booked a house in Gurgaon....his thinking that this is a good time as well as a good age to take a house. Another one searching for a house to take so that he can have peace of mind for the rest of his life.......and what am I doing? I am looking for a loan so that I can open 3 more branches of my small business which I started almost as soon as I started earning...and have since been putting most of my savings into it (it HAS started paying back now so I feel that is a good thing...)

Now my thinking...am I lucky that I have a liability in the form of a business to take care of? Because once I had done these things...namely:

Invested in a house, car and other "basic" amenities required in the future....
Put most of my money in EMI's for loans for all the things purchased/booked in point 1...
Become comfortable thinking that whatever I have taken in point 1...and will be paying off through point 2....is all that I need....

Will I ever think of opening my own business??? Will I ever think of coming out of this comfortable scenario??? On the other hand....if as I am doing, I am putting money into a business which is growing....then possibly 5 yrs down the line, I will actually be playing golf or roaming around the world or doing something else when everyone else who started there comfortable life 5 years back will be working monday to friday......am I lucky?

Arrow in my heart....

2009-06-12T22:33:00.003+05:30

I was just a little too drunk today i guess....so started thinking....

Medieval ages...a war going on. I am a simple soldier whose sole responsibility is to shoot arrows into the air and try stop the knights from coming to close to start using their swords...I have been doing the job pretty efficiently for the last 2-3 years but as they say...the life of an archer is pretty short....one knight gets through or one foot soldier gets his sword near you and you are dead...very simple reason that due to shortage of iron, an archer only gets his bow and arrows and no sword to save himself. Even the bow is usually made of wood and if it breaks, your only option is to start running back...which in a way is good because it takes you away from the front where all your mates are getting slaughtered from the swords that have been able to escape your arrows...

And then I started having my thoughts run to a possible time when the enemy swords DID get through...and I was the unfortunate one to get one spike right through my stomach. That would possibly not have been as painfull but for the fact that the dude who pumped his sword into me was in a hurry to get it out...and hence the sword...which probably had not been sharpened before the war...managed to scrape a part of the aorta and the food pipe on its way out...the point is that even this is not painfull since all the nerve endings which result in the feeling of pain are present in the skin...which only has a thin slit in it. The point is that due to this "scraping", the blood has decided to start flowing out. And since the aorta gets its dosage of blood directly from the heart, and the heart has not yet decided to stop pumping, I end up lying on the ground...which is really hot due to the sun up in the sky beating down on the stones and making them small embers piercing into me....watching my blood flowing out. I am really surprised at the amount of blood that was actually present in the frail body where everyone in my entire life had said that not even a litre of blood will flow out. I am willing to take a bet that at least 5 litres flowed that day at least....and then the darkness arrives...

Is that death? Maybe it is...maybe i am just fainting....but what the hell.....I do know that I never woke up after that.....but if our life truly is so cheap...then why do we fight our entire life to just stay alive?

Welcome Aliens

2008-10-07T11:11:00.000+05:30

Welcome Aliens, Welcome to Earth
The land of the yellow sun, the misty mountains, the deep oceans
The land of the corrupted politics, the unbridled terror, the morbid battles
Welcome Aliens, Welcome to our planet Earth

Our weapons are outdated and semi-affective
But we know how to survive, we practice regularly
Our armies kill each other across the globe,
Ensure that the weapons don’t erode
We practice regularly, the art of warfare
Welcome Aliens, Welcome to War

Our terrorists are precise and on-the mark
But we know how to bear, we tolerate regularly
Terror strikes again and again and again
Ensures that we don’t feel safe in our own habitat
We tolerate regularly, the dread, the fear, the despair
Welcome Aliens, Welcome to Terror

Our politicians are insatiable and rapacious
But we know how to forgive, we elect again
Economies sink, avarice overcomes faith
Ensures that we don’t know if our money is ours
We elect regularly, the same hungry politicians
Welcome Aliens, Welcome to Greed

Our viruses are unique,
You will not have seen them
Let us gift you some, let us gift you all
War, terror, greed have no antibiotic
Take them, take them all
Welcome Aliens, Welcome to Earth

2008-06-10T18:07:00.002+05:30

I am sorry.......simple words to end all worries? That is what we all think unless we actually come face to face with a situation when what is more required is not a "sorry". That, as a matter of fact is the last thing that could actually take things out of the rut that you have so nicely put them into.

How I wish that I knew just what to say (because that is the only thing i can do on the phone) at this very moment to make things so much more better and easier for the one person who means so much to me. How I wish just what i can do to make that someone feel that she is not alone in this world....because i know that is what she is feeling. How i feel that i cld actually discuss this situation with her because i know she wld have the absolutely correct thing to say.....

God, plz give me strength to make her and me pass through these times because i know she will not ask for strength....plz need all the energy that can be diverted to her so that she can fight this battle....AND so that she can feel that she is not alone.

2008-04-07T16:04:00.003+05:30

how i wish i was one of those ants whose sole aim in life is to collect food so that the queen can lay her eggs and the progeny can flourish......at least they have an aim.....and they keep going after it. AND it is THEM who have everything in thr hands to go after it......not like me whose entire locus of control is external....

something happening to me.....dont u thnk....i keep going in these tangential directions again and again

No Title....

2008-04-06T11:20:00.002+05:30

Ever felt something missing from ur life? Usually feels when we just need someone to whom we can just go and talk and feel and they are not there.....its a strange feeling....just been feeling that way for last few days so thought i will put it down......
Suddenly while doing something....an everyday chore or something completely different.....that sudden empty feeling deep inside the heart....as if something is missing....and knowing that the person due to whom this is happening is not going to be their to meet u in the evening or even talk to u on phone when u most want to?
Suddenly while sleeping.....u wake up feeling as if their is supposed to be someone thr who is not....and she is actually not thr......and u know u have to wait looong for her to actually be with u....since our priorities in life r completely different......

are these priorities actually so important for us? That we just cannot live without them...even though they keep us away from everything that keeps us actually happy? What is more important.....a "career" and "experience" or "life" and "happiness"?

What am i going on about.........since this blog is such that no one reads it......provides a great way to take out my thoughts.....thanks blogger

Thank you IPL

2008-03-29T09:58:00.002+05:30

Yeah!!! Thanks IPL...for promoting what we should not...
In one of the recent advertisements promoting this new mode of cricket...a patient is asked by the dentist about his likes for teams....the poor guy grins and names Delhi...and in the process loses all his teeth...because the dentist was for Mumbai.

This concept which is so prevalent in the European countries for various games is being imitated by IPL in India now. Unfortunately, it so happens that India has a cultural diversity which showcases a different India after almost every 100 kms...In such diverse environs, it anyways becomes a big task to ensure that people call themselves Indian and not address themselves by areas (thanks to Chak De! and SRK for promoting Indianism which seems to be losing its importance and relevance in this new India...really unfortunately) And now IPL is making things even more stingy...

I keep saying this and I keep thinking about it...I just hope that a day does not come when people forget that their is an India which they live in.........

Rgds,
Falcon

Learnings on unity...from a taxi driver

2008-03-14T18:03:00.002+05:30

We call these huge ambassadors in Kolkata as Yellow Buffaloes...one such buffalo was taking me from my office in Taratala to my guest house in Alipur - a small distance of around 15-20 minutes. These were some of the most interesting minutes of mine for quite some time before.

The driver was from Bihar - a small district called Burdwan. I had felt that my knowledge of development was too good and started having a small conversation with him regarding the latest development related activities which the new government of Bihar was doing. This includes setting up of educational institutes, infrasrtucture, setups for MNC's etc.

This is what the driver had to say (the entire thing was in Hindi but translated here for convenience of the idle reader) :

"Saab, I am matric pass. I call myself educated from Bihar standards but I know that I am still uneducated. When we uneducated people have a dispute, we have a fight. It may or may not be a fist fight but we definitely fight. We abuse and we shout and scream at each other. We say things about each other's mothers and sisters. We do everything that our feeble mind feels will give the other person pain. But we do it on their face. AND we forget about it as soon as the incidence is over.
What do educated people do saab? Look at Maharashtra. These people call themselves educated and developed? They keep small things in their hearts till these small things become big and then simply cut up the poor person who is living away from his village working in their homes, offices and factories, doing menial jobs just to ensure that his family back home is able to eat two meals a day! Will you call Bal Thakeray or what is his son's name...educated? If this is educated and developed, then I will not want Bihar to be this saab.
I will want that before opening all these IIM's and IIT's, we should first teach our people to live like one...to ensure that the education - if and when they get it - is used for purposes that it should be used for...and these are for the development of the fellow beings living not only in their localities but also in their states and even more importantly...in their country.
Its been such a long time since I last heard someone saying that he was from India saab. All that everyone says is that he is from a state of a region."

Eye opener? I was stunned by this seemingly 30-35 year old who claimed to be just class X pass to say something so astounding that I wish I could make him stand on a podium and say these words in front of the entire country....I wish I could hear him speak for some more time...

Rgds,
Falcon

Waiting....

2008-03-03T09:08:00.002+05:30

Still waiting....for "something" to happen to me that will make me appreciate my own or anyone else's existence in this world...
Still waiting....for "someone" to appear who will make us understand that we dont exist just because we need to and their could be other reasons...
Still waiting....for "someplace" to open that could give me the solace and the peace that I feel is what we should endeavour to achieve in our short stay here....

TRYING....to understand that maybe that "something", "someone" or "someplace" could be inside me rather than outside....
If their is God....Prayer to thee for everyone here......help me live or help me otherwise

Getting late...and lovin it

2008-02-29T12:51:00.002+05:30

I am one of those people who love to reach the airport an hour in advance if the airline wants me to be their 45 minutes before. I follow this and barring afew anomalies, I have stuck to this...and then will be sitting on a chair waiting for boarding announcement and very religiously board without anyone in the airline having to worry about me.
Last week, I had to take a flight from Guwahati to Jorhat...Jet is my fav airline (after all they treat thr frequent fliers in the most royal way) and I was at my best reaching the airport an hour in advance. Checked in and went and sat down comfortably....and went off to sleep.
I was the last to board and the airline actually had to arrange a separate bus to take me to the flight...and they got at least 20 mts late because of this......I understand that this will possibly be common (or not so uncommon) for a lot of ppl....but frankly this was a first for me (after arnd 100-150 flights taken till date)
And the experience (airlines ppl....plz dont read this)......it brought an ADRENALINE RUSH! Absolute thrill...!!! And the stares of the airline staff was awesome!!! Felt so good that immediately went to sleep again on boarding.....a tired satisfaction.

Falcon

Long time no see...heeheehee

2007-07-11T22:47:00.000+05:30

Some ppl will be surprised that I still remember the password of this page. Sply those newspaper guys who write about all those ex-bloggers who have stopped writing anything on thr blogs. Anyways.....you all guys can count one out...because I m not going to let go so easily.

These last few months have been toooooo long. Lost some very very good frnds....to accidents or to time....whatever. Gone.

Joined (of all the places in this entire country) ....North East as Area Sales Manager...and now taking care of something like 25 odd ppl getting in a whole lot of sales. I never understand where and in whose stomach all those biscuits go. I never bought so many of them at one go! But then...why do I care....these ppl get me my salary...and that is what I m here for na!

And then....started my own biz!!! Surprised??!!! Hehehehe....more at some future date...lets see what happens on this front.

Anyways...do stay in touch with my travel blog....i m going to make it a glossary of various places in North East very soon!!! Complete with pics etc!!!

For Ramki...

2007-03-06T18:54:00.000+05:30

I dont know how to put these thoughts into words. I had a holi which I know I will never forget but I will have loved to forget ASAP. And I know that till the time I stay in Britannia, from this sunday onwards, everyone is going to remember me as the guy who got Ramki out.....I just feel sad that it was not Ramki that I got out of the pool but just his..............

Feels earie to think that the nice sweet fellow who used to wave a hi whenever he saw me and whose voice used to boom into my ears whenever I went to take coffee on first floor is no more.....and I was instrumental in finding out that this was the case.....

Ramki.....in your end, I have found a new meaning of life.....and I assure you that I will not forget this new meaning.....this new meaning that life is not in our hands....a meaning that life can be as short or as long as someone else wants....a meaning that whatever is left of our life....we shld ensure that we live it not just to the full for ourselves...but try to make everyone else arnd us know that life (or whatever we have left of it) is to be enjoyed and lived to the full. That life has been given to us for making us do what we are capable of....hence we shld do what we can with it to ensure a very happy and fruitfull living for ourselves and all the stakeholders in our life.

To Ramki......may your soul rest in peace

2007-03-02T20:22:00.000+05:30

tooooo looooong daaaaaysssss :-((

HR stint...saara kaam khatam...finally

2007-02-09T12:34:00.000+05:30

Phew!!!! That was some work. Possibly because the only time I have tried doing something in HR was during my MBA and that too with a mind and body both refusing to obey the commands of my HR profs and (having a mind of their own) deciding to go to sleep at the slightest mention of Human Resources...almost the same ordeal was being sufferred by the poor me during these last couple of weeks. Infinitely looooong hours of using my hands keeping my eyelids open rather than using them for purposes more useful (like typing this blog)

Finally it is over and I am starting on my marketing stint...the last but one stint in this 6 month training program which I am sure has taught me more than I learnt in any other 6 months of my life....and this from me after having completed only 4.5 of the 6 months I am talking about.

Lets see what Britannia has in store for me next. I am sure it is going to be fun...working on the largest brand of the company...and to top it all...the brand manager is from XIMB!! (came to know that yesterday only during my first introduction to her)

Wish me luck pleeeaaasssee somebody...

Regards for the minions of the Earth,
Falcon

Blood Diamond

2007-01-31T16:21:00.000+05:30

Leonardo Di Caprio in a hell of a role. Along with Djimon Housou (both of them in award nomination roles....should win if I were to decide) they have created a movie with an impact so powerfull that it can be put into league with the very best. Djimon has shown the kind of talent that lies in movie industries which even though are not as famous as hollywood or bollywood but have starts who can compete with the very best in business (incidentally this is the second such movie after Kabul Express taking support from local actors who have worked wonders to the movie).

The movie is a lovely package which though could possibly do without the love part cropping up. Thankfully it was not hyped any further than it was. And Leo dying in the end made for a fitting end to a movie which was intented to work on the emotional nerve of the audience. To top it were the dialogues....my fav..."...I sometimes feel that God left this place a long time back...he got too depressed...." (this one is currently my google talk status message).

An all out blockbuster which makes you feel that living in Kashmir in the 90's would have been peacefull. I hope the condition in Africa is not that bad....and if it is...I hope to God that it improves ASAP.

One mention too for all the other characters in the movie. The director played his part and so did all of them.

Must see...if u already have not

Regards,
Nishant

HR ppl do work!!!

2007-01-31T16:20:00.001+05:30

HR guys to work!!! Yep, that is the conclusion that I have drawn after this rigorous HR stint that just got over. 3 working days + 3 holidays in between and I had to finish preparing one training program. Thanks to my great pals working as HR managers in different companies, I managed to make some progress and finish the work on time (I totally screwed up my long weekend in the process with Guru and Salaam e'Ishq still remaining unseen..).
Result of the stint: Realization that HR guys do have some work to do...even though the job that I did could have been taken care of by any vendor but a great experience in googling :-D
And I did not get to write about Blood Diamond which is a superb movie btw...will be my next post.
Take careRegards,Nishant

The World's Fastest Indian

2007-01-02T01:41:00.000+05:30

I was surprised to hear Antony Hopkins in a movie about an Indian. Good that it came out to be the old bike.

Awesome movie shot with a 1963 New Zealand and USA as the backdrop, it talks about how a man dreamt big and ensured that he achieved it amongst all odds. Who cares if the dream was just to break the land record for the fastest streamline bike under 1000CC. Who cares that the man had a bad heart and a bike with hairline fractures in the wheels and no chutes or breaks to stop. Who cares that the bike was almost done for on so many occasions that the movie watcher will lose count. The one thing that matterred was the old man's attitude....sample this one; "what if I lose a leg....I have a spare one" or for that matter....."if you do not dream son....you might as well be a vegetable..." Their are more where these come from.

I will definitely recommend this movie for anyone and everyone who actually wants to get some motivation to go out into this world and get what they dream about....and dont just watch the damn movie....learn from it....that is what I am going to try and do....or rather try...

Salem...an unknown wonder

2006-12-31T20:27:00.000+05:30

Some of the most beautiful places in the world are still unexplored. The words came true when I was forced (literally) to do my Sales Officer stint as part of my training program in a place called Salem. Salem is a district in the north of Tamil Nadu, a place where people do not speek any other language but Tamil and without which, I felt my life for the next one month will be a living hell...

It was not. What it actually was was a beautiful experience visiting some really lovely locales (not always with my camera since I WAS on an official work) and some good food (most of the times I even liked the rice meals most common for lunches).

What follows in the next few posts is an account of all that hapenned (and did not) in Salem, Krishnagiri, Vanyambadi, Thiruannamalayi and loads of other places where I went.

Hope the accounts are as intersting as the trip was.

Regards,

Nishant

Yerkaud today....mast Salem

2006-12-03T20:53:00.000+05:30

Seriously a great place....Yerkaud was coooooool!!!!!!!

will write in detail about it during more time... :-(

imagine not having time even for my beloved blog...but now...will come with pics!!!...from my very own Canon

Numbers...Salem and more

2006-11-19T00:16:00.000+05:30

One month in Chennai has given to me more education in FMCG S&D and a host of other things than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. After all how can anyone find out on their own how pathetic they have been at so many things that they always thought was their forte? Take presentations for that matter....I make a beautiful presentation (according to my mundane standards) and with pride, show it to arnd 3 top-brasses of the company! A royal screw will be a much pleasurable experience compared to what I went through after that. Butchered, annihilated, swashbuckled......these are the words that come to my mind. 24 hours and around 14 hours in front of the computer later, I came up with something completely different. Now that same presentation is doing the rounds of almost everyone on the company's board!!! So one day to learn something so important which I had never realized I did not know for all these years and months as that flashy MBA!!!

Another thought went through my mind while waiting for a table at a very good restaurant (in terms of the mughlai cuisine that they serve). We always seem to feel that a person inside a prison will be spending a life as a number and not as a name. For some time during our lives, almost all of us do have that kind of life in our daily work.....in a restaurant, you are known as Table no 4, in a cinema hall u r seat no F42, in a flight u might be 12D......so what is the diff?

Next stop...Salem for my SO stint!!! Hope to keep upto the reputation that I have created here.

Nishant

In Chennai....!!!

2006-10-25T20:00:00.000+05:30

Yep, I finally get to write afew more words into this unknown blog which no one but myself reads. Not that I have not thought about it, I guess the amount of times I thnk about writing something here far exceeds the amount of time I thnk of calling my best of frnds. Just that I dont get to sit at a computer so often here with all this sales stint that is going on. Right now I just hapenned to get stuck in a cyber cafe because of rains.....imagine....Chennai and rains!!!! I never thought that actually was a phonomenon that hapenned.

Anyways...here I am in Chennai, far away from any living thing that I know personally (though a lot of my known frnds claim to be in Chennai) enjoying my days and somehow finding enuf good places to eat (unlike claims made by another set of frnds who happen to have spent some time of thr lives inChennai). One thing I find here...all men are equal! Color, clothes...take whatever u want to take....they are all black and wear white dhotis (no derogatory meaning intented....everyone here IS black)...so black that they actually make me feel white (which of course i m not)!!!

So finding life in Chennai a helluva lot better than had been made to imagine but will really find a problem in case i have to spend longer here than i have to. nyways i have finished all Dan Brown's and Jeffrey Archer's that i could lay my hands on and eaten as much rice as could come into my hands at a time. Though the rajisthani thali in the rajisthani dhaba on the main Anna Nagar road (the one with Saravana Bhavan...Still dont remember what number the road is).....is great...Try the Rajwadi Thali (80 bucks) and i m sure anyone will like it.

Looks like the rain has stopped...

Ciao
Nishant

And me becoming a mama

2006-09-27T22:53:00.000+05:30

AFter giving all that gyaan on how I will not be able to write another post in a long time....I write one within half an hour.

My 2 great frnds...Anuj and Soumya...who did find mention in at least one previous post are now going to be proud parents... (actually I am not supposed to be telling this since the two of them have full right to tell this...but I just could not keep this inside my stomach....sorry Anuj and Soumya Gupta)....and I have decided that instead of becoming a tau...i will be a mama...(it sounds younger...tau has a hint of old in it...this is just one of the reason)

and i m sending the link to Anuj and Soumya so that they can see me publishing the news and come and kill me... :D

Enjoy!!!
Nishant

And off I fly again....

2006-09-27T22:27:00.000+05:30

I believe today is my last day in front of the computer in I3L. Tomorrow the SMG (Systems dept) will take it away. Possibly the best days of my life in this place were spent at the times when I was not in front of this machine. That is because I was most probably away from the office either in coffee day or in CLI3L or somewhere outside. Hence not many "fond" memories with this box of wires....but still a computer is a computer, specially when it comes with the glorious thing called the internet. I am sure that my next big personal purchase is going to be a laptop and then of course...an internet connection in whichever place I finally settle down.

Now that is a completely different matter that I have no clue where I will finally settle down. Or even when I will be able to write another post on this lovely wonderful blog of mine. Hope both the things become clear soon.

Bangalore has been good to me and even though I have hated the people here (not the frnds...but somehow the junta here has been able to really piss me off) and I have hated almost everything except the food and the weather....the place is good and I kind of started having a liking for it towards the end. Possibly because I knew that the ordeal was coming to an end. I dont know for how long I am going to stay here (joining Brit in Blore but then may shift at any time out of the place) so bidding adieu to it right now.

Take care ppl and be good...!!!

Nishant

Phew....!!!! Finally....!!!!

2006-09-14T19:12:00.000+05:30

Yeah, I know. Whoever will hear the news will definitely come to this blog to check out what I have put here regarding this.

So ladies and gentlemen....I have resigned. Or to put it more subtely, I have put in my papers. The decision seems to be a big one but believe me, after all the high hopes and high expectations that I had entertained while joining here and seen all of them (barring none) getting dashed one at a time, this decision was just waiting to happen. All that was required was a new place to go to and a new way to start off.

Lucky for me, here it is.

And....I have resigned. Or to put it more subtely, I have put in my papers.

Taxi Driver's MBA lesson

2006-09-02T00:04:00.000+05:30

Got this from a dear friend of mine...another awesome read

This is a true story from a Microsoft employee in China, very long but an interesting read. It reveals the power of statistics.

The Taxi Driver Taught Me An MBA Lesson

I needed to go from Xujiahui to the airport, so I hurriedly concluded a meeting and I was looking for a taxi in front of the Meiluo building. A taxi driver saw me and very professionally came in a straight line and stopped right in front of me. Thus followed the story that astonished me greatly as if I had attended a lively MBA course. In order to faithfully preserve the intent of the taxi driver, I have tried to reproduce his original words according to my memory.

"Where do you want to go? Good, the airport. At Xujiahui, I loved to get business in front of the Meiluo building. Over here, I only work two places: Meiluo building ( 美罗 ) and Junyao building (均瑶 ). Did you know? Before I picked you up, I circled around Meiluo building twice before I saw you! People who come out of office building are definitely not going to some place nearby ...."

"Oh? You have a method!" I agreed.

"A taxi driver must also have scientific methods," he said. I was surprised and I got curious: "What scientific methods?"

"I have to know statistics. I have made detailed calculations. Let me tell you. I operate the car 17 hours a day, and my hourly cost is 34.5 RMB ..."

"How did you arrive at that?" I asked

"You calculate. I have to pay 380 RMB to the company each day for the car. The gas is about 210 RMB. I work 17 hours per day. On an hourly basis, the fixed cost is the 22 RMB that I give to the taxi company and an average of 12.5 RMB per hour in gasoline expenses. Isn't that 34.5 RMB?" I was a bit surprised. I have taken taxis for ten years, but this is the first time that a taxi driver has calculated the costs this way. Previously, the taxi drivers all tell me that the cost per kilometer was 0.3 RMB in addition to the total company fee.

"Costs should not be calculated on a per-kilometer basis. It should be calculated on an hourly basis. You see, each meter has a 'review' function through which you can see the details of the day. I have done a data analysis. The averarge time gap between customers is seven minutes. If I started counting the costs when someone gets in, it is 10 RMB for about 10 minutes. That means each 10 RMB customer takes 17 minutes of time, which costs 9.8 RMB (=34.5 x 17 / 60). This is not making money! If we say that customers who want to go to Pudong, Hangzhou or Qingpu are like meals, then a 10 RMB customer is not even a bite of food. You can only say that this is just a sprinkle of MSG."

Great! This driver did not sound like a taxi driver. He seemed more like an accountant. "So what you do then?" I was even more interested and I continued my questioning. It looked like I was going to learn something new on the way to the airport.

"You must not let the customer lead you all over the place. You decide what you want to do based upon the location, time and customer." I was very surprised, but this sounded significant. "Someone said that the taxi driving is a profession that depends on luck. I don't think so. You have to stand in the position of the customer and consider things from the customer's perspective." This sounded very professional, and very much like many business management teachers who say "put yourself in others' shoes."

"Let me give you an example. You are at the entrance to a hospital. There is someone holding some medicine and there is someone else holding a wash basin. Which person will you pick up?" I thought about it and I said that I didn't know.

"You take the one with the wash basin. If you have a minor complaint that you want to be examined and to get some medicine, you don't usually go to a faraway hospital. Anyone who is carrying a wash basin has just been discharged from the hospital. When people enter the hospital, some of them die. Today, someone on the second floor dies. Tomorrow, someone on the third floor dies. Those who make it out of the hospital usually have a feeling of having been given a second life and they recognize the meaning of life again -- health is the most important thing. So on that day, that person told me, "Go ... go to Qingpu." He did not even blink. Would you say that he wanted to take a taxi to People's Plaza to transfer to the Qingpu line subway? Absolutely not!"

I began to admire him.

"Let me give you another example. That day at People's Plaza, three people were waving at me. One was a young woman who had just finished shopping and was holding some small bags. Another was a young couple who were out for a stroll. The third one was a man who wore a silk shirt and a down jacket and holding a notebook computer bag. I spent three seconds looking at each person and I stopped in front of the man without hesitation. When the man got in, he said: 'Yannan Elevated Highway. South North Elevated Highway ...' Before even finishing, he could not help but ask, 'Why did you stop in front of me without hesitating? There were two people in front. They wanted to get on as well. I was too embarrassed to fight with them.' I replied, 'It is around noon and just a dozen or so minutes before one o'clock. That young woman must have slipped out at noon to buy something and I guess that her company must be nearby. That couple are tourists because they are not holding anything and they are not going to travel far. You are going out on business. You are holding a notebook computer bag, so I can tell that this is business. If you are going out at this time, I guess that it would not be too close.' The man said, 'You are right. I'm going to Baoshan.'"

"Are those people wearing pajamas in front of supermarkets or subway stations going to travel far? Are they going to the airport? The airport is not going to let them enter."

That makes sense! I was liking this more and more.

"Many drivers complain that business is tough and the price of gas has gone up. They are trying to pin the cause down on other people. If you keep pinning the cause on other people, you will never get any better. You must look at yourself to see where the problem is." This sounds very familiar. It seems like "If you cannot change the world, then you should change yourself" or perhaps a pirated copy of Steven Corey's "Circles of Influence and Concern." "One time, on Nandan Road, someone flagged me down and wanted to go to Tianlin. Later on, someone else flagged me down on Nandan Road and he also wanted to go to Tianlin. So I asked, 'How come all you people who come out on Nandan Road want to go to Tianlin?' He said, 'There is a public bus depot at Nandan Road. We all take the public bus from Pudong to there, and then we take the taxi to Tianlin. So I understood. For example, you look at the road that we just passed. There are no offices, no hotels, nothing. Just a public bus station. Those people who flag down taxis there are mostly people who just got off the public bus, and they look for the shortest road for a taxi. People who flag down taxis here will usually ride not more than 15 RMB."

"Therefore, I say that the attitude determines everything!" I have heard dozens of company CEO's say that, but this was the first time that I heard a taxi driver say that.

"We need to use scientific methods and statistics to conduct business. Those people who wait at the subway exits every day for business will never make money. How are you going to provide for your wife and kids at 500 RMB a month? This is murder? This is slowly murdering your whole family. You must arm yourself with knowledge. You have to learn knowledge to become a smart person. A smart person learns knowledge in order to become a very smart person. A very smart person learns knowledge in order to become a genius."

"One time, a person wanted a taxi in order to get to the train station. I asked him how he wanted to go. He told me how to get there. I said that was slow. I said to get on the elevated highway and go this other way. He said that it was a longer way. I said, 'No problem. You have experience because you go that way frequently. It costs you 50 RMB. If you go my way, I will turn off the meter when it reaches 50 RMB. You can just pay me 50 RMB. Anything more is mine. If you go your way, it will take 50 minutes. If I go my way, it will take 25 minutes.' So in the end, we went my way. We traveled an additional four kilometers but 25 minutes quicker. I accepted only 50 RMB. The customer was very delighted for saving about 10 RMB. This extra four kilometers cost me just over 1 RMB in gas. So I have swapped 1 RMB for 25 extra minutes of my time. As I just said, my hourly cost is 34.5 RMB. It was quite worthwhile for me!"

"In a public taxi company, an ordinary driver takes three to four thousand RMB home per month. The good driver can get around five thousand. The top driver can get seven thousand RMB. Out of the 20,000 drivers, there are about two to three who can make more than 8,000 RMB a month. I am one of those two or three. Furthermore, it is very stable without too much fluctuation."

Great! By this point, I admired this taxi driver more and more.

"I often say that I am a happy driver. Some people say, 'That's because you earn a lot of money. Of course, you must be happy.' I tell them, 'You are wrong. This is because I have a happy and active mind, and that is why I make a lot of money.'"

What a wonderful way to put it!

"You have to appreciate the beauty that your work brings. Stuck in a traffic jam at People's Plaza, many drivers complain, 'Oh, there's a traffic jam again! What rotten luck!' You must not be like that. You should try to experience the beauty of the city. There are many pretty girls passing by. There are many tall modern buildings; although you cannot afford them, you can still enjoy them with an appreciative look. While driving to the airport, you can look at the greenery on both sides. In the winter, it is white. How beautiful! Look at the meter -- it is more than 100 RMB. That is even more beautiful! Each job has its own beauty. We need to learn how to experience that beauty in our work."

"Ten years ago, I was a general instructor at Johnson's. Eight years ago, I had been the department manager for three different departments. I quit because there was no point in making three or five thousand a month. I decided to become a taxi driver. I want to be a happy driver. Ha ha ha ..."

When we arrived at the airport, I gave him my business card and said, "Are you interested in coming this Friday to my office and explain to the Microsoft workers about how you operate your taxi? You can treat it as if your meter is running at 60 kilometers per hour. I will pay you for the time that you talk to us. Give me a call."

Then I began to write down his lively MBA lecture on the airplane.

Mail from Mrs.Sudha Murthy

2006-09-01T17:34:00.000+05:30

I personally find this article very inspiring. Small sentences can give so much help to how life should be handled. Please read it.

It was probably the April of 1974. Bangalore was getting warm and gulmohars were blooming at the IISc campus. I was the only girl in my postgraduate department and was staying at the ladies' hostel. Other girls were pursuing research in different departments of Science.

I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a doctorate in computer science. I had been offered scholarships from Universities in the US. I had not thought of taking up a job in India.

One day, while on the way to my hostel from our lecture-hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board. It was a standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (now Tata Motors). It stated that the company required young, bright engineers, hardworking and with an excellent academic background, etc.

At the bottom was a small line: "Lady candidates need not apply."

I read it and was very upset. For the first time in my life I was up
against gender discrimination.

Though I was not keen on taking up the job, I saw it as a challenge. I had done extremely well in academics, better than most of my male peers. Little did I know then that in real life academic excellence is not enough to be successful.

After reading the notice I went fuming to my room. I decided to inform the topmost person in Telco's management about the injustice the company was perpetrating. I got a postcard and started to write, but there was a problem: I did not know who headed Telco.

I thought it must be one of the Tatas. I knew JRD Tata was the head of the Tata Group; I had seen his pictures in newspapers (actually, Sumant Moolgaokar was the company's chairman then). I took the card, addressed it to JRD and started writing. To this day I remember clearly what I wrote.

"The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India, such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in India since 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised how a company such as Telco is discriminating on the basis of gender."

I posted the letter and forgot about it. Less than 10 days later, I received a telegram stating that I had to appear for an interview at Telco's Pune facility at the company's expense. I was taken aback by the telegram. My hostel mate told me I should use the opportunity to go to Pune free of cost and buy them the famous Pune saris for cheap! I collected Rs 30 each from everyone who wanted a sari. When I look back, I feel like
laughing at the reasons for my going, but back then they seemed good enough to make the trip.

It was my first visit to Pune and I immediately fell in love with the city. To this day it remains dear to me. I feel as much at home in Pune as I do in Hubli, my hometown. The place changed my life in so many ways. As directed, I went to Telco's Pimpri office for the interview.

There were six people on the panel and I realised then that this was serious business.

"This is the girl who wrote to JRD," I heard somebody whisper as soon as I entered the room. By then I knew for sure that I would not get the job. The realisation abolished all fear from my mind, so I was rather cool while the interview was being conducted.

Even before the interview started, I reckoned the panel was biased, so I told them, rather impolitely, "I hope this is only a technical interview."

They were taken aback by my rudeness, and even today I am ashamed about my attitude. The panel asked me technical questions and I answered all of them.

Then an elderly gentleman with an affectionate voice told me, "Do you know why we said lady candidates need not apply? The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-ed college; this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout. We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research laboratories."

I was a young girl from small-town Hubli. My world had been a limited place.

I did not know the ways of large corporate houses and their difficulties, so I answered, "But you must start somewhere, otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories."

Finally, after a long interview, I was told I had been successful. So this was what the future had in store for me. Never had I thought I would take up a job in Pune. I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married.

It was only after joining Telco that I realized who JRD was: the uncrowned king of Indian industry. Now I was scared, but I did not get to meet him till I was transferred to Bombay. One day I had to show some reports to Mr Moolgaokar, our chairman, who we all knew as SM. I was in his office on the first floor of Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) when, suddenly JRD walked in. That was the first time I saw "appro JRD". Appro means "our" in Gujarati. This was the affectionate term by which people at Bombay House called him.

I was feeling very nervous, remembering my postcard episode. SM introduced me nicely, "Jeh (that's what his close associates called him), this young woman is an engineer and that too a postgraduate.
She is the first woman to work on the Telco shop floor." JRD looked at me. I was praying he would not ask me any questions about my interview (or the postcard that preceded it).

Thankfully, he didn't. Instead, he remarked. "It is nice that girls are getting into engineering in our country. By the way, what is your name?"

"When I joined Telco I was Sudha Kulkarni, Sir," I replied. "Now I am Sudha Murthy." He smiled and kindly smile and started a discussion with SM. As for me, I almost ran out of the room.

After that I used to see JRD on and off. He was the Tata Group chairman and I was merely an engineer. There was nothing that we had in common. I was in awe of him.

One day I was waiting for Murthy, my husband, to pick me up after office hours. To my surprise I saw JRD standing next to me. I did not know how to react. Yet again I started worrying about that postcard. Looking back, I realise JRD had forgotten about it. It must have been a small incident for him, but not so for me.

"Young lady, why are you here?" he asked. "Office time is over." I said,
"Sir, I'm waiting for my husband to come and pick me up." JRD said, "It is getting dark and there's no one in the corridor.

I'll wait with you till your husband comes."

I was quite used to waiting for Murthy, but having JRD waiting alongside made me extremely uncomfortable.

I was nervous. Out of the corner of my eye I looked at him. He wore a simple white pant and shirt. He was old, yet his face was glowing. There wasn't any air of superiority about him. I was thinking, "Look at this person. He is a chairman, a well-respected man in our country and he is waiting for the sake of an ordinary employee."

Then I saw Murthy and I rushed out. JRD called and said, "Young lady, tell your husband never to make his wife wait again." In 1982 I had to resign from my job at Telco. I was reluctant to go, but I really did not have a choice. I was coming down the steps of Bombay House after wrapping up my final settlement when I saw JRD coming up. He was absorbed in thought. I wanted to say goodbye to him, so I stopped. He saw me and paused.

Gently, he said, "So what are you doing, Mrs Kulkarni?" (That was the way he always addressed me.) "Sir, I am leaving Telco."

"Where are you going?" he asked. "Pune, Sir. My husband is starting a company called Infosys and I'm shifting to Pune."

"Oh! And what will you do when you are successful."
"Sir, I don't know whether we will be successful." "Never start with diffidence," he advised me. "Always start with confidence. When you are successful you must give back to society. Society gives us so much; we must reciprocate. I wish you all the best."

Then JRD continued walking up the stairs. I stood there for what seemed like a millennium. That was the last time I saw him alive. Many years later I met Ratan Tata in the same Bombay House, occupying the chair JRD once did. I told him of my many sweet memories of working with Telco. Later, he wrote to me, "It was nice hearing about Jeh from you. The sad part is that he's not alive to see you today."

I consider JRD a great man because, despite being an extremely busy person, he valued one postcard written by a young girl seeking justice. He must have received thousands of letters everyday. He could have thrown mine away, but he didn't do that. He respected the intentions of that unknown girl, who had neither influence nor money, and gave her an opportunity in his company. He did not merely give her a job; he changed her life and
mindset forever.

Close to 50 per cent of the students in today's engineering colleges are girls. And there are women on the shop floor in many industry segments. I see these changes and I think of JRD. If at all time stops and asks me what I want from life, I would say I wish JRD were alive today to see how the company we started has grown. He would have enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

My love and respect for the House of Tata remains undiminished by the passage of time. I always looked up to JRD. I saw him as a role model for his simplicity, his generosity, his kindness and the care he took of his employees. Those blue eyes always reminded me of the sky; they had the same vastness and magnificence.

(Sudha Murthy is a widely published writer and chairperson of the Infosys Foundation involved in a number of social development initiatives. Infosys chairman Narayana Murthy is her husband.)

Article sourced from: Lasting Legacies (Tata Review- Special Commemorative Issue 2004), brought out by the house of Tatas to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of JRD Tata on July 29, 2004

Ode to CEO, Deccan Airways

2006-08-30T15:50:00.000+05:30

One great swashbuckling karate kick in the face of the company "dubba peetofying about being the second most famous airline in India" in so few years!!!
http://smilesnsmiles.blogspot.com/2006/08/to-ceo-air-deccan.html#comments

This one is a must read though I apologize to the author to have put this link on my page without her permission. I am sure that she will not be averse to any miniscule publicity that this post might get for her blog.

Phone calls

2006-08-28T21:57:00.000+05:30

So many new things hapenning in life that I almost forgot to put this in...but anger and frustration apart, blogs should be updated with (in my case) anything that my dimaad thinks about...

What do you do when you are called out of your office by a very good friend of yours and then just when you two start talking, this friend gets a phone call? Nothing...right? You just stand their and wait for him to end it as soon as he can and restart his talk with you...right?

This is just what I did today...waited and waited and waited and finally found that I had been doing that wait for more than 15 minutes (let me assure you if you do not already know that these 15 minutes are longer than most years that you have lived on this planet). All that I do is grin at anything which sounds remotely familier even though I have no clue about the person at the other end of the line who is taking the time which was supposed to be yours!

Finally decided that I had enough and since nothing else seemed good to be done, I started walking away slowly only to find this friend of mine following me....OK...so now what? Start walking with him!!...And this guy did not stop talking on the phone...finally I just took off leaving him to do his chatting making sure that next time something like this happens...I will not do anything.

What I am going to do now is that I am going to send the link of this post to this good friend of mine ;-)

Chill guys!!!
Nishant

2006-07-27T00:05:00.000+05:30

Mast zindagi hai...meri nahi...unn logo ki jo normal times par kaam karte hai. I came to office at 9 in morning yesterday and felt so bad about having to come at odd times to work. If only I could work at the same time as every single normal person....guess that is not going to be the case for some time to come. Still felt such a different feeling. Now I will definitely understand the improtance and the special feeling of working at these times more than any person who has been waking up at 7 just to be in office on time. My roomie shouts and screams about having to go early in the morning....ab ussko kaun samjhaye ki kaash main bhi aisa kar sakta... :-(

Hope I will do the same one day........one day

dhoom dhadakka

2006-07-25T01:08:00.000+05:30

could not thnk of any better heading for this post. after all this is what is going on in my head currently...24X7....day in and day out. Have so many things to think about. Earlier it was the daily targets that I was thinking about...now since I have taken myself away from them, it has become the "other" things (best left unsaid till a better time since I dont know who all must be reading these posts)

I never thought that my head could ache so much just because of some stupid things going on inside. actually cant exactly call them stupid since they have more to do with the thing called my career than anything else has ever been...and that brings me to the reason why i have been blabbering here for so long.

I was thinking about all the things that we have done since we were born that we have been told or we have thought "are the last things that we need to work hard on to become something"!!! I remember the first time that i was told this was in class 8th. My mom went after me saying that if i work hard, i will get enough grades to see me through the rest of my life...and I BELIEVED HER!!! Then class tenth boards, class twelth boards, medical entrances, navy SSB, air force SSB, medical entrances again, all enggineering years, MBA entrances....and then I went away to XIMB hostel and no one to say anything and hence i started the completely useless work of blogging...but now this thing comes up and again i start thinking...had all those things really been so important? if i had secured a li'l bit less marks in any of them, would I have been worse off...or vice versa...had I been better off had i got something better in any of them? guess i will never know since i did not get anything less or more.

Strange world...we work so hard to get what we get and then dont have a clue what would have hapenned had we worked less hard....or we do not work and get what we get and again have no clue what we would have got had we worked harder...!!! Simply...as I said initially...my brain is going crazy and making a sound....DHOOM DHADAKKA

My GOD...WHAT IS WITH ME?

2006-07-15T01:37:00.000+05:30

yesterday a gr8 frnd of mine writes a testimonial for me on orkut saying that he loves to read my blog....opened my eyes...i forget to write stuff on it and thr is at least someone here who likes to read it!

I decided that i have to do something for this lone customer that my blog has...i am not going to let him down and am going to write with new vigor and josh (is thr any diff between the two words? i dont know)

anyways...i decided that i will write about orkut today. seriously an amazing creation of human brain. i met up with a loooot of old long lost frnds thru this thing.....

as i said...getting so late now. have to log out but i dont want to lose this nice habit of blogging....used to take so much tension away from me....actually feeling better already

2006-05-29T21:49:00.000+05:30

Seems like my posts at this blog are decreasing by the day. :-( life is taking a toll on me....kya karu

on a serious note...i have nothing worthwhile to contribute to humanity and hence i feel that the only reason why i m writing this seems to be my all encompassing statement that i m perfectly useless to any process that i going on on this planet...hence possibly i m the best person to be sent to the moon whenever the next trip goes there...maybe i will do something usefull thr

2006-05-12T23:24:00.000+05:30

blore is good....as far as the weather is concerned at least. my job is stressfull...as far as i am concerned at least. my bike is flying...as far as the roads are concerned at least. but things are very very dull PERIOD

update on my side...working in office at least between 4 to 1 and stay back and come early since nothing to do at home. play snooker, almost started to go to the gym (this i do daily ;-))...

and a news flash...first couple from my XIMB batch to get married- Sujesh and Sudeshna..sure hope that the message on yahoogroups is from Sujesh and sure hope that they find the true everlasting love for each other in this relationship not just in this life but all the future ones to come.

now i get back to my work!

Bangalore.....

2006-04-11T22:51:00.000+05:30

Here I am...This is me...i guess i had no clue as to what i will be....

in bangalore for arnd 10 days now i feel as if i have been thru so many things. Events are the ones which drive ur life and not time. this is what i get to understand now. same 10 days without any events would have been just a blip on my life's radar. these 10 days in a completely new place, among completely new ppl, being (literally) thrown out of a guest house and then going on to another, joining a company which is changing by the day, going on a leasurely (though official) tour to Bandipur Wildlife santuary (earlier more famous for Veerappan but now the elephants and tigers and leopards seem to have taken the place)...all these things do seem to change things.

Then getting to do things which i had never thought will be something i will be interested in (thinking of finance as i was during most of my mba...though later turned to sales) now this feels like a completely new challenge that i have to take and succeed at.

we have also taken a house (me and bisu) which is more of a duplex and ppl are actually shocked at how we could get it at such low costs. and now i am planning to take a bike very SOON...cant go back to my place at 1AM or later without the auto walla taking 2-3 times the actual money.

lots of crap have i said today...take care all the vella junta reading this crap column

Anuj and Soumya.....and Bangalore tomorrow

2006-03-30T01:09:00.000+05:30

yesterday i had two great frnds getting married. Anuj and Soumya had never talked during all the years in school together. and finally decided during a small meeting in a small meet in another frnd's place that they were made for each other. surely marriages are made heaven. as anuj was saying sitting on the dias yesterday waiting for soumya, "I had never thought that i will be marrying a girl from AFBBS!!". Sure anuj...neither did i thnk about you that way.

All the best to a great couple and may your love blossom as it has till now. u 2 make me feel like getting married fast now ;)

though i wil have to convince someone else for that and she is not in any mood right now...i know that :D

i am leaving for bangalore tomorrow. lets see what happens in this new place. Till date i have learnt something worthwhile in all the new cities that i have been to. Hope blore is only different that it teaches me a LOT of things and not just afew.

Till next time (which i dont know when will happen)

frm bbsr to bglr

2006-03-26T23:52:00.001+05:30

Things change, locations change. But such changes do not happen so often. It seems just yesterday that i was leaving home to joing XIMB in Bhubaneswar thinking of another new city that i will get to explore and another new life that i wil be able to live. and now after having gone thru bbsr, ctk, puri and a host of other places..not to mention kolkata in my summers, i am now going to leave delhi in 3 days time for going to bangalore...another new city to explore and another new life to live.

What is that place like? their seems to be at least one person from each indian family who is currently working in bangalore. wherever i have gone in these past weeks..after my convo which itself was such a big event in my life that the excitement kept me away from my blog for all these days...there has been someone who is "currently in bangalore" or has "just gone to bangalore" or is "just shifting to bangalore". How much place does that city have???? i wonder!!!

My XIMB...i do miss it a lot

2006-03-24T02:03:00.000+05:30

This was something which was always going to happen. We always knew that we will have to leave XIMB...for good. Then why is it that after leaving campus last week, after coming home to the same 24hrs net connection, after getting all the home made food that i was longing for all this while, after knowing that i will soon be one of those ppl in the world whose first salary will be in the top income tax bracket, after knowing that a completely new and hopefully as exciting life awaits me in Bangalore, I still feel as if i have lost a huge and important part of myself by coming out of XIMB?

The Ashoka trees lining the roads, the professors whose classes were better for catching up on our sleep, the rooms where we spent most of the time even if it was to chat with the guy living in the room next to ours, the mess which was more famous for the things it did not serve rather than the ones it did, the stairs in front of the mess and the culverts where we added all those spices to the already flavored gossip that we heard, the flowers that studded the campus as the placement season neared bearing a reminder to the days to follow the placements, the payiks and the mess wallas sitting thr always looking at u as a person who has come for a short time and in this time, they try to become ur family...in this time u become thr family.

Have a great time my XIMB....and all the ppl who come in and go out of those gates which changed so many things...inside us and outside us.

Left XIMB for good

2006-03-08T23:44:00.000+05:30

working on my comp from home seems to be such strange occurance for me right now. no ppl coming over to disturb me and no pops to reply to. this life is going to be difficult to adjust to...sply since this net previlidge may not stay for long as have to join itc in less than one week now. things are actually getting more senti with meetings with old frnds (school and college) and this creates a greater feeling of being away from ppl u love....sply after leaving them. man was created by god and by putting these emotions into man, god gave him a huge responsibility. now i m starting to understand it. but soon ximb will also become a memory and a beautiful incident in my life which will be thr to remember and cherish and the feeling of having to leave it will go away...after all this is part and parcel of everyone's life...ain't it?

And on...and on...

2006-02-27T00:50:00.000+05:30

My neighbour left today...now i feel that i never talked to nitin (gambhir) as i shld have...no heart to heart talks...nothing. feels as if we missed out on knowing each other even more during our 1.5 years of night outs together, 1.5 years of staying in adjacent rooms, 1.5 years of listening to each other...but now he is gone...and i am going today. hope i meet him again and am able to tell him this.

Mickey also left today. this guy has been such great help...any problem and inevitably his name will be first in my mind as in most of the other ppls minds. i just feel that i get more time with these ppl in the future...and they stay happy wherever they are.

miss u guys...b-top looks and feels strange without u and without the usual shouting and banter

And the days go by....

2006-02-25T23:51:00.000+05:30

These last few days have gone in nothing but parties...from junis to seniors or vice versa...from one individual to the other...or in any other form or fashion (including one between me and manu ;-)) but the days still go by...thinking about what next is going to come in our lives. it seems to be just yesterday when i was writing a blog post wishing my seniors best wishes in thr lives...now i m in thr position and the same seniors are telling us that they will be thr to help us and our junis are wishing us in the same way as we were...

i leave campus day after tomorrow...to surely come back once to attend the convocation baraat that tells the world that we are corporates now. i dont know wether we are actually or not...seems like MBA shld be not 2 but 3 years long. since we were told in the beginning that we will unlearn what we have learnt till then and then relearn...i guess what we have done in 2 years has been all unlearning...so we shld need at least one year to do the other part i.e. relearn. Plz make it 3 years.

dunno what i m talking about.. i dont say that my posts have some sort of a format in terms of a head, body and ending but today..i know that this one does not...so anyone who has cared to drop by and actually read this post till this time..plz excuse my banter

all the best everyone

2006-02-23T02:48:00.000+05:30

YOU CAN TAKE AN XIMBIAN OUT OF XIMB BUT YOU CAN NEVER TAKE XIMB OUT OF AN XIMBIAN.

Truth and now i understand why.

http://maloyvilla.blogspot.com/2006/02/last-day-at-ximb.html

this one says most of the things that i would want to myself.

Everything is nothing

2006-02-23T02:26:00.000+05:30

These words seem to have come from the mouth of some great thinker in a very high class gathering. If i say that they came from a waiter in Chilka Dhaba...a small highway dhaba near the Chilka lake, it will seem like a very strange thing. Actually the reference in this case was to a query about any cold drinks which they may have and his reply was "Everything is nothing" meaning that all the drinks that we asked for, none of them was their. strange eh? stranger things happen.

The above incident occurred on our night tryst with Oliver Ridley Turtules which was arranged by Prakriti the nature club of XIMB for us a couple of days back. These turtles come on the coast in these 4-5 days at a place near the Chilka lake to lay their eggs...and they come in thousands. A nice adventure and some good company was what made the trip a really memorable one. Entire B-top along with Meera and Manu and Satyen were in one car and we had some great fun inside as well as on the beach. Apart from the turtles which surely were scared seeing so many ppl thr, the beach during night with the waves shining and the foam glimmering made for a spectacular view. The stars also seem to have a way with expression specially for ppl who come from the city. u might just be stunned into silence if u see a night sky in the wild for the first time. the sheer quantity of the stars is enuf to make one think about his place in this universe again. The eggs of the turtles which our guide quitely dug out and kept in my hands felt and looked like TT balls. The guide told us that we could keep them in formalin and they will hatch. none of us was interested in that kind of a pet so we gave the eggs back to him and he promptly slid them into his bag....most probably to make an aumlette in the morning.

Some great experiences i have had in these last few days of my stay in ximb...sure hope that these continue forever.

2006-02-22T11:44:00.000+05:30

It feels so good to talk about having been placed and going to start earning and all the different things that come along with that. what we forget or feel like overlooking are all the things that we are going to miss after we go out of ximb. I had never been in a hostel except in the navy and surely this experience has been absolutely amazing. No words are sufficient to describe the amount of learning that i have gained and the change that has come in me that i myself has felt in these 1.5 years. (even my typing speed has increased manifold)...

After yesterday's party (I feel like me and the other 4 Bad Boyz troupe have become an item performers...when nothing else is thr then send us in on the stage.) it seems that the time has reaally come in now. I hope that everyone in this place gets what they want and get it fast so that they get enuf time to enjoy it as well.

And by the way...plz my acting yesterday left a lot to be desired and i m thankful for that since the role that i got did not exactly suite me ;-)

Ode to XIMB Batch of 2006

2006-02-22T11:43:00.000+05:30

Remembering my class mates after few years
My eyes were filled with tears
Everyone now is busy a lot,
No one escaoed destiny's plot

Project reviews to campus interviews
Nicknames to last bench games
Cultural rehearsals to love proposals
Short term crushes to class room blushes

Everything is fresh in our mind
Wish life could just rewind
Let's laugh play and rejoice
Once again become college guys

Chatting and laughing. we all were in elation
Till the painful moment of seperation
When it was time to part
We returned with a heavy heart

Today life is full of commitments
And too many worries
But those cherished moments
Will live forever in our memories!!

Maxinations 2006

2006-02-20T02:13:00.000+05:30

Well!!! words cannot express the feelings that went through me and everyone else in XIM in these last few days that we have here. Maxinations just came to end with a surprise win for us which has left not only the rest of people but also our own block stunned. great team effort along with almost everything clicking for us in the end was what took the game towards our side. From the morning (coming second in quiz when nothing was expected) then following that up with some great presentation skills shown by pankaj and nitin in the brand presentation (we came second in that in the end) then coming second in Sargam as well (I was with mickey in that event :-D...no one in XIMB knew that any of us could sing...i still uphold that trophy :-D) and then to top it all, first in Block Rock!!! and this time our confidence card on the event gave us a huge lead. now i can again say that i was part of the 5 guys in the choreography...again a surprise for not only XIM but for me as well!!!

Overall...personally for me, a very satisfying end to a great 3 days...sply since we were so close to winning last year as well. Here is the win to the entire B Block as well as to the seniors who always wanted to but could never get the trophy. Great play by everyone else as well.

BAD BOYS ARE HERE!!!

2006-02-17T11:38:00.000+05:30

Seems like a looong time since i last wrote something on my blog. My "frnd in times of boredom" whom i totally "forgot" during other times...guess that is the reason i put this post now. days seem to have gotten shorter for me for some days. The classes in KIIT seem to have not only got a lot of experience for me but also this great feeling that i could be the result because of which several 100 students get some jobs in the next few months. the students thr seem to be somewhat like in XIMB. A mixture of great and not so great ppl who together make a campus such a beautiful place. I really feel a lot for some guys with just about great skills in engineering but almost no way that i could make them speak. just hope that the companies that come are able to understand this and likewise recruit. i just hope that they all get placed and do not forget to tell me about it. a silent best wish for them all.

Today we start off with our quest for the Maxinations trophy. Something which we Almost won last year but could not because of no reason. The tempo is great and reminds me of the last year when we were all really charged up with that fire in our belly and i am sure we can do an encore this time as well. ALL THE BEST B BLOCK....After all...B A D B O Y S Are Here!!!

Great time i m having

2006-02-09T12:25:00.000+05:30

Guess losing friends and getting new friends is a part and parcel of life. but all these things apart, last few days have been really great. First was the trip which i talked about to puri...not exactly puri but to beautiful and empty beaches near puri. The views were spectacular and we really enjoyed a full day of masti. Details about that in the next post since right now i am a bit busy (yep...in these times of excess time ;-)) after all i have a quiz to give and then go on to KIIT for the classes that i m taking thr. It really feels great knowing that u have 2 full hours to urself to keep talking and the poor souls in front of u have no other option to listen to u.

Going to Puri

2006-02-06T00:56:00.000+05:30

nice times to get bored in :)...

going to puri to spend a day on the beach with friends...njoy everyone

Khandagiri and Bhittarkanika...my answer

2006-02-04T23:27:00.000+05:30

I got a complaint today on my google talk. unfortunately I was not in my room at that time. The problem with this friend was that even though my status message was that i was "extremely bored" I had not bothered to write anything on my blog for a couple of days now. Sorry bhai but this was more because i forgot to change my GT status message :-) These 2 days have been busy like any other nice day should be and the title of this post should tell you just why!!

Yesterday, I went to andhra bank to do a small 2 min work for my NEM project. The fellow told me to come after one hour since he was "busy". I had no clue what to do so went over to khandagiri which was close by and spent an hour in that place eating chanas at the top of a mountain which also had a jain temple and a shiv temple. An hour was spent their and then when i reached back, i spent another 1.5 hours sitting in front of that idiot of an officer just staring at his face. Eventually he simply told me that he did not have the two minutes to spare :-( and could not even give an appointment for the next day. (actually that was good since i had more important stuff to do today :-D)

Today was our trip to bhittarkanika (yep again for me) but this was different and enjoyable in a different way. While the first trip was 4 guys on an adventure with no plans made beforehand, this one had been meticuously planned out by sujesh and consisted of 16 ppl (after richa opted out). 2 Qualis and a huge boat later not to mention the treck and the leg breaking journey in the cars, i have reached the following conclusions:
1. It really matters wether u have been to a place before or not. It could be as enjoyable if not more if u have a different group and/or a different reason for going. I had both, my reason being to keep a better lookout for snakes (i managed to get a glimpse of one in the wild) and to just chill out which i did.

2. Do NOT eat in the new Reliance A1 dhabas...the food is bad and cold and basically more of glamor in the place than anything else (after all how many dhabas have waiters who have left places like Pal Heights to serve u food on a highway!!!) Just does not give the dhaba feeling after the food has come in front of you.

3. Enjoy life!!! :-)

So...really sorry my frnd for not having changed my status message, i have done that now...though it seems that from tomorrow, it is going to be the same old story again...

orkut rules

2006-01-31T11:03:00.000+05:30

Seems strange to thing that with nothing else to do, even then i did not write anything on my blog yesterday. The reason is stranger...with nothing to do, there is nothing to think and hence nothing to write about....simple eh!

So how am i passing my free time nowadays one may think. Till yesterday it was through one of the most ridiculous things that one could think of. I was using the famed orkut.com to find long lost friends and getting in touch with them. Believe it or not...i actually found a friend i had lost contact with after class X!!! And small as this world is, this guy is in bangalore...where i am destined to be in months time. The two of us do share a lot of memories together and i hope that shankar was as happy to see my mail as i was after seeing his.

Enjoy life ppl

So much to talk about

2006-01-29T11:16:00.000+05:30

Thr are days as i must have mentioned before when u have so much to talk about that u feel that you need more than a blog and more than afew minutes to write about them. Yesterday was one such day. The only reason why i did not put anything yesterday itself was that at 5 in the morning, after dancing for 5 whole hours and then taking a guy back to his room after he had had more than his usual quota of drinks, i had no energy left to even think about logging in and writing something.

A very dear friend of mine took me to a temple yesterday. No big deal...I am one of those ppl who go to temples on a regular basis. Now this temple i went to was really located in such a small corner of the city that we actually wondered who had discovered that such a temple even existed. And then it was really small. Why this friend took me was because she had kept a small mannat and on its finishing she wanted to come and take 108 rounds of the idol. Why u may ask. This will happen in case u r not familier with the way indian society is run. Total faith in God and all his doings and undoings is such that even things which are explained by normal contemorary science are sometimes attributed to Him. But we are MBA's (me and my friend), so why do we believe in all this and actually feel that in case we ask him for something, he is the one who is going to give it to us? Not that i am in any way lowering his place or trying to dispute that he does not exist or even trying to lay a claim about his presence. This is supposed to be a very median statement not meant to mean or convey anything. I just felt sitting their and waiting for her to finish her rounds, as to why this was happening. Is it because we are not confident of what we can achieve on our own? Or is it because we need someone to put all our mistakes on? Or probably to have someone with us...because man is a social animal and all our lonely ordeals on this planet make us want to have someone around...so why not have God who will be present everywhere and we can talk to him and walk with him and listen to him at any time that we feel lost in this big bad world?

If that is the case then as soon as the above things are taken care of, will we lose our faith in the existence and hand of god?

I dunno...all that i know is that if their is God, then i would prefer to have him on my side...

For the Blogophobics

2006-01-27T11:57:00.000+05:30

Since last year when i started this blog, i have had numerous ppl coming over and saying how much time i am wasting on this "crap" and "@#@%&#" and some decent words as well. Now i give one small thing that hapenned yeserday night that was actually an example of how USEFUL a blog can be. Rabi came over to my room asking me about Bhittarkanika, how to get thr, what to do thr and all similar details. All that I had to do was open my blog and let him read my post about Bhittarkanika. Howzzat!!!

So now for all the blogophobics, blog haters and the similar junta....herez a reason to write blogs. You dont have to remember everything that happens in your small or big world...depending on how you see it.

So pick up those idle fingers and type away...

2006-01-25T11:48:00.000+05:30

These medicines do have a way of thr own. I got this really bitter cough syrup from a doctor and was told specially that it will make me go to sleep and hence i shld not be driving or doing any similar risky work after having it. Within a week, i finished an entire bottle but not once did i feel that my sleep was because of the medicine. absolutely no affect...either on my sleep or on my cough.

Next bottle that i get is another medicine which is supposed to be in a "new tingle flavour"...whatever that means...and this does not come with any soporific warnings. i took one spoon of this and i got to know the "tingle" flavor...and after 15 min...i had forgotten everything and was in a deep slumber on my bed. Thnk god that i was in my room nahi to pata nahi kaha so raha hota raat bhar ;-)

these medicines and there ways!!!

2006-01-24T23:11:00.000+05:30

cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough ...............

that is all that is coming out of me right now...so that is all that i can think of putting on my blog right now...

hope i m the only one suffering from this illness on the planet right now

take care everyone

my plans

2006-01-22T11:57:00.000+05:30

back from wasting some of my quality time at home, i have a very daunting task ahead of me. I have to decide where to spend the rest of my days that lie in front of me before my company decides to have the guts to start giving me money (for what, i still dont understand). i have thought of afew things which i am not sure about that will work. but still my mind is so so so confused that i really cant understand what to do. i have put enuf e-books on my comp to last me a lifetime if i want to, enuf movies on cd's to while away another lifetime, enuf games to waste another generations precious time....but what the hell am i going to do?????

anyone having any suggestions or recommendations...plz come ahead and put them up for me. I will be really grateful

going home

2006-01-09T20:17:00.000+05:30

seems like such a long time that 0.2 celsius temperature in delhi is also not at all putting ice on my mood of going back home. tonight, i push off for a nice long week at home which as it happens will be my longest stay at home since i joined ximb.

hope the dilli ki sardi is able to create a cool atmosphere but not put ice on any of my plans...

enjoy everyone

Xuberance 2006..grand closure

2006-01-08T01:31:00.000+05:30

I have been itching to write this post for a long long time. Actually since last year when sitting at the control desk, I saw the elation on the faces of my seniors when signing out...each with a job and each happy not just for themselves but for their friends of 2 years who are going to be their for them for the rest of their lives. Tomorrow is that day for us. We all sign out starting 10:30AM. But I saw that joy on my batchmates faces today itself.

As soon as word came out that the last of us had been placed...it was simply a "cycle stand affect" that took place...with an uproar going up all over the campus (right upto the faculty quarters waking them up as well). There was no stopping any of us, shouting and shouting and jumping and jumping and laughing and laughing away to the brink of madness. The elation and joy and ecstacy knew no bounds.

It is but difficult to put into words, and even more difficult to put into writing (since no one can actually see the emotions that arise on my face while writing this post) the kind of feeling that is going on. We were all awaiting the last result with bated breath counting down the number of people left to be placed. A real painful thing specially for those who were part of that group. And then....it goes down in history as the first truly 100% placement for XIMB on day 1...it goes into history as the best placement for XIMB in its history...it goes into history as Xuberance 2006.

With these emotions I want to draw this post to a close humbly wishing all my batchmates best wishes for a wonderful and successfull career and life full of joy and happiness and satisfaction with all achieved and desire to achieve all that is yet to be attained.

These last few weeks...

2006-01-06T12:18:00.000+05:30

Long have been these weeks. No sense of what is going on....first the GD's were not getting cleared. Then suddenly there seems to have been some major upturn and I started clearing them...all of them!!! On last count..I had cleared 7 of them on the trot. Then I came across another hindrance...interviews. I had to somehow find out what the hell did each company want...."profile matching" is what the HR ppl like to call it. Then came 4th of Jan...the day when I had given XAT 2 years back and the day when I had got my summers one year back...this time it was my turn to get a job!!!
HDFC offerred me my first job! I was stunned...because the way I had performed in the interview was absolutely pathetic. Giving stupid answers to stupid questions
e.g.
Q: What are u looking for in HDFC?
Ans: Treasury
Q: Why?
Ans: Because everyone who has done finance wants treasury!
Q: But dont u think u will be more suitable for retail marketing?
Ans: May be...actually that is the reason why I took SDM and B2B and SM as papers!

And I was selected....GOD knows what they were looking for.

Anyways..that scared me..because of a simple reason that I have a strange aversion to banks. They simply dont impress me. So next day..with renewed vigour, I sat for ITC Infotech. GD cleared...interview..I gave but i did not know what impression i made. Suddenly I came to know that i had been cleared for a second round of interview and i was shocked. that also went coolly and i was waiting for the result. bated breath and almost senseless. What came was even a bigger shock than what had been hapenning in the last few days. I was offerred a LATERAL OFFER!!!!!

Some company had actually recognized my Navy experience as lateral and had decided to offer me a job then!!!

Things have taken such a lovely turn...

WHEW!!!...these last few weeks are coming to an end now!!!

2006-01-01T13:05:00.000+05:30

This is just a continuation from a reply on a very dear friends blog (http://xcellence.blogspot.com )

This is regarding success and failure that people look at. Ppl like to go to bookstalls and read books about "1001 ways to succeed" but never think about failure. Something similar to what we learnt in our PROF class. Why do we forget that behind every Armani suite, their are a 100 torn shirts. This is a very known human tendency that success gets on the brain much faster than failure. You will hardly find a person who has had a success without failure to even think about people who have failed more often (a.k.a. my frnds in XIMB) whilst people who succeed after having failed more than their due share of times find success to be sweeter (a.k.a. some other of my friends in XIMB). And then (as my blogger friend puts it) people go to successful people to ask how to succeed not understanding that to be successful, it is more important to understand failure than it is to understand success.

This diatribe of sorts may be taken by some as my own wanteness for recognition (u know....one of the people who continue to fail despite all the "strategies" that we adopt) but it surely is a truth in life.

Oh...by the way...A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone who bothers to drop by and read these small ejaculations from my heart

Days seem to be getting longer....

2005-12-28T10:35:00.000+05:30

IT is just afew days left to the beginning and end of placement week to come on us and I am starting to find these days getting longer and longer and longer. With daily full dress rehearsals and GD's (and somehow I feel...now interviews as well) it is becoming an ordeal that does not show any signs of abating. As it is...it is becoming more and more difficult to go out with so many other people who have nothing more to do but give gyaan to people like me on how to go about targetting companies...

What can a little success do to an individual is amazing. From being a no one to being a person who feels that he is the GOD and then going ahead and trying to prove it to the less lucky mortals is a behavior that has been written on since long time back (not that I have read any such books but guess it must have..how can the enterprising psychologists and sociologists of this world leave such a topic alone!)

Anyways...as Abhishek Bacchan says... "ye world hai na world...isme do type ke log hote hai, ek jinki naukri nahi lagi hoti hai aur dusre jinki lag chuki hoti hai. Jitni jaldi iss dusri category mein aa jaoge, utni jaldi kismatwaale kehlaoge" (this world has two type of people, one who have not got a job and the others who have. The sooner you join the second category, the earlier you will be called a lucky guy.)

Friends???

2005-12-26T23:25:00.000+05:30

Friends...that is what people like to call themselves. Of course everyone knows the definition of a friend.." one who stays with you in cheer and tear....bla bla bla..." and of course everyone boasts of being one who does that. But in the end it all boils down to the same thing. "I have one thing which you dont...so obviously you dont know what you want in life while I always did..." even though the same person for the same thing may be feeling exactly the same way just two days back as you are feeling today. Arre if you dont know how to make a person feel more comfortable...then at least dont worsen the situation for him. At least, calling yourself a friend, this much you can do. But what does a friend in despair...in need of a shoulder to cry upon get? He gets another person talking in the same way as the rest of the human race in exactly the same tone making it clear ki in this world, every man is for himself. Friends are there only till the time they are required by you. Least bothered about what they may be feeling or may feel if you talk in the way you want to.

This is the definition of a "friend" as should be told to children. After all schools are supposed to make children fit to live in this world and this is one essential thing that has to be learned....or maybe this IS taught in school...i may have missed that class

A random thought...for the record

2005-12-21T01:48:00.000+05:30

Just a thought which passed by in my mind while talking with a junior...

Since you are in the system,
Be like the system.
Till the time, you are not able to change the system,
Dont talk about the system.

All the more reason to try and rise above the system

Nice day this was...

2005-12-11T02:31:00.000+05:30

Hmm....so where do i start?

This post is actually a continuum of the last two posts with positive results for both of them. I cant believe that I finally managed to clear a GD. This is a different matter that out of the 9 ppl in my group, 7 were selected (these minor things are better overlooked) but the point is that I cleared! Company is Genpact (GE's BPO) and the pay is good. The interview was also fine...actually i guess my navy background really helps in a lot of places simply because of the reason that the other person surely does not know anything about the field and i can faff to my heart's content :-)

I may or may not get thru but i surely gained some confidence as far as my capabilities regarding my getting placed is concerned.

Dinner ka to pata nahi...but the lunch in the mess was again pretty darn decent. Rajma chawal remains my fav any time anyways and this today was also pretty good...of course not comparable to what i could get in delhi from my mom's hands.

Vaibhav has reached back to delhi from IMA after two terms getting over. Next term he will be the boss in the academy...how i remember my days in NAVAC when our sixth termers used to srew us like hell and we had no option but to think of the time when we will be in thr place...that chance never came for me but still.....remember i do...

chalo gd nite for now
till nxt time

The mess bounces back

2005-12-10T02:15:00.000+05:30

By making that statement...i am probably imitating our media which has the habit of exhorbitantly expressing itself everytime a small player makes a significant achievement...sometimes to such an extent that the poor player (he is a human after all) is left feeling like a god and starts to falter...before reaching the alter (;-))..

I guess since our mess is not going to know about this post, it really does not matter in this case. Tonight for dinner (which is cancelled for me by the way) we had parathas with potato in gravy and cucumber raita with the usual daal and fried rice. The entire fare has been served to us every friday but today, the taste was much much better. It sounded as if the thought of losing great business had made the contractor realize that he had to do something and finally...a.k.a. Ajay Jadeja in his hay days...the mess rose from its slumber to serve a menu which was not only eatable but actually relishable (if i could use a word like that)

Hope the good work continues....and oh!!!...by the way...i still dont have a job :-D

2005-12-08T01:09:00.000+05:30

I have no clue what i was thinking about when i opened my blog today. guess that is what it is supposed to be like that u can publish anything that u feel like, whenever u feel like. but today seems to be a very very spl day. i have lost 2 offers...not that i had them at any point of time but i could have got them only if.........

only if i knew the answer to that only if....
only if i understood what these ppl select in a GD....
only if i knew what godamn thing is going to be asked by an interview panel which could be of importance...
only if i had the capabilities of faffing which everyone else seems to have and everyone feels that as an "mba" everyone is supposed to have....
only if i understood what was going on in ppl's minds at any given point of time...
only if i had a fraction of intelligence that Mel Gibson got in What Women Want...
only if i become fortunate enough to get what i want or desire at least once in my life....(other that my better half or best full that she likes to be called...and of course my parents who i am really fortunate to have...)
only if.....i knew the answer to these only if's.....

i was just wondering wether the only way that i could get a job was in a company which did not take a gd...???

maybe...because that is how i got my summers as well.

god send a good company where they dont take a gd....baaki future mein kya karna hai ye main sambhaal lunga...shayad...probably with ur help....

guess thats it...this is all that i had going on in my mind and this is all that i wanted to just take out somehow

Team for the World Cup

2005-11-28T16:25:00.000+05:30

i was standing in front of the mess the other day when i heard a great roar of spectators coming from the T.V. in the MPH upstairs. Sensing a blistering knock from Tendulkar or Dhoni, I ran upstairs to see the match. What i saw on the screen was something completely different. Tendulkar was dejectedly walking back to the pavilion after having made a painstaking 2 runs from 15 balls. India had lost their second wicket. India went on to lose the match by a record breaking 10 wickets. They had achieved this feat only 3 times previous to this, once before against the proteas. Big deal...u may feel. India is known to be unreliable in terms of cinsistent performances anyways. But the deal is big...this time, it was the first time that a home crowd was cheering for the visitors...and cheering in one voice. It was the first time that a state or a region had taken so much importance over the country for so many people at one place. It was for the first time that just because a Bengali was not playing in the match, the crowd was willing to change their dedication to an alien nation. It was in my reckoning, the first time that the true nature of this regional snake has shown its fangs.

Are not the other players of the team not Indians? Are they not playing for the country? Are they not representing the people of India (which in my knowledge also includes West Bengal)? This is the same team which convincingly defeated the Lankans and had just broken the record of unbeaten south africans. Would they have lost in this way had the crowd behaved as they shld have....For the Country...?

From next time I feel the selectors have one more criteria to fill before deciding on the team for home matches...the venue will have to be decided first and then a reservation has to be made in the team that at least one player in the playing 11 has to come from that state.

If these are the reservations that are going to come to the team...why not have the usual SC/ST etc reservations? Possibly we could even incorporate one for the part of the country....say...2 places for a North paw, etc etc etc etc....and the team for the World Cup is ready!!!

The World as I see it

2005-11-26T11:13:00.000+05:30

The World as I see it

This blog belongs to a senior in XIMB...some awesome pics that he has taken. Chk it out

Friends

2005-11-21T16:17:00.000+05:30

With so many things at hand, you would never expect someone to have time to just sit idle. That is what I felt like doing for some days now. It is in times like this that the true value of friendship is seen. Somehow, friends will just sense something wrong....somehow they will know that you are not feeling good...somehow you will give urself away even if u try ur best not to. Then that friend will just take in their hand to guide u out of the rut and back on the track. Such an amazing feeling it is to feel that way...to either get urself pulled out or to pull someone out who u really care for.

A friend can easily change ur mind from feeling like nothing could go right to the point where u just start murmuring "I believe I can fly" and actually feel that u can.

Thanks to the world for giving such good friends to me. Hope I can keep upto the expectations of my friends...

Ironies abound

2005-11-04T02:15:00.000+05:30

I was going through an old episode of "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge"...it seems to have taken our campus by storm...every dialogue/joke is listened to with the utmost attention and then repeated almost everywhere across the campus. One guy who was not even selected (his jokes were really pathetic...probably that was the reason for his rejection) gave this really nice seeming sentence..."What an irony in life that Diwali has Ali (Diw'Ali') in it and Ramzan has Ram ('Ram'zan) and still the two religions find it so difficult to coexist in so many parts of our country.Cant we just stay together and work together?

Nice thought...I really feel it merits more than a small mention in a laughter show amidst so many other PJ's which are being told at a dime a dozen...

2005-11-02T09:14:00.000+05:30

Life is full of ironies. Or I seem to be experiencing more than my fair share of them. Our B-school follows a mixed way of teaching. What I mean is that we do a lot of theory through the Stanford way of teaching through books and class discussions but almost similar amounts of work using Harvard style case studies where we get to experience the problem as it took place in some organisation and then solve it.

I really dont mind either of them and truthfully feel that both Stanford and Harvard should follow our style of teaching. My current apathy is towards the cases as we discuss them in class. The company in concern has a problem (most likely they have got into one). Among all the things that we will see, there will be the way that things would have been done so as to have avoided the problem alltogether. And mostly, this is the teaching that we are supposed to get from the case. "How could things have been done so that this problem would not have occurred?" Wonderful, right? But a small problem. Dont these companies have managers who have also done their MBA from some b-schools? OF course they do. Then would not they have thought of all these things before going for the step that they did? Of course they would have. Even then they decided to go ahead with this idea. Why dont we discuss that?

e.g. the HLL's merger with Tomco was being discussed in one class. Final decision was that the only person that it benefited was the promoters of HLL. If that was the case, why the hell did eveyone else still go ahead with it? It has been found clearly that they all could have known about this imbalance of synergy before going for the merger. Did they not do the simple valuation calculations that are required to do this? I dont think so. Then why did they go ahead with this? The case is over but we still dont know.

Time is flying

2005-10-24T12:42:00.000+05:30

It has been 11 days since my last post here. Sure not what i have been doing since afew months. But with the news of the first company coming on campus for its placements, time has just started flying. Nervousness has become evident on a the faces of a lot of people. Library is getting more and more people every night...and Time Is Flying.

All the best to everyone for getting the jobs that they are dreaming about.

My aim in life

2005-10-14T12:40:00.000+05:30

I read a science fiction novel some days (or was it months) back. It talked about time-traveling and how tourists were taken across time to see the dinosaurs and all the other beasts and things that were present in their history. They were not allowed to step on the land in these different times but a floating carpet was spread just above the land on which they could walk. This was done so as not to disturb the balance that was prevalent at that time.

One guy on one such tour mistakenly steps on the grass and kills a butterfly which was sitting there. He gets scared and does not tell anyone. On coming back, they find that the entire world has changed. Things are not as they had left them. Their is a different fascist government, people talk different, houses are different...nothing is the same. The guy understands that it is because of the butterfly that he killed and decides to do something about it.

The novel starts here, my story ends here. My wish is to be like that butterfly. Just imagine the kind of change that occurred over time just because of the absence (or presence) of that butterfly. I want to be a person who brings about a change in the world which will be seen and appreciated. How many people can right now boast of having brought that change? I dunno but I am sure very few. I want to be one of them and that is my target...I want to be the butterfly...