To start with this weekend post, I like to tell you about my sharing house. We, four of us (from same college) stay here in Bangalore. We usually clean the house once in a while. If the period of cleaning stands a month, we all be surprised and keep guessing why so soon? Next day, a satisfaction of keeping the house clean would be drawn on all our faces. For a while couple of us went for client assignment. As usual, the remaining of us never bothered of how clean the house is. Naturally, the house was open to all kinds of dust, dirt, road side sediments - thanks to Bangalore Corporation, Thar roads are yet to be laid in our area! - and the worst affected is our bathroom. I don't want to describe it. Its open to your imagination. So after all these description, what I want to tell is I feel completely satisfied today, meaning Our House is completely cleaned up with help of a maid! Happy faces all around :)
PJs (or attempt to crack them or mokkai in Tamil slang) apart. Now, some serious stuff. I am following a Indian web based product company for a while but not keenly though. It is Zoho - a web based office suite app. It doesn't stop with word, spreadsheet, presentation etc., it goes one (more) step ahead and provides enterprise software products like CRM to its customers. It's target is small and medium scale companies. Its services (to be precise, Software as a Service) comes with dirt cheap prices (comparing to its competitors). Guess who are its competitors. None other that Google!. Yes, Google docs and the leader in web based Enterprise office suite, Salesforce. Zoho's founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu is an exemplary person with great vision and character, maintains very low profile and at the same time sends a million dollar a month to his company's kitty. Most of the networking guys would easily relate him if I say he is the creator of a wonderful product called Adventnet. Read more about him here and also Robert Scoble has a say. I am very much impressed. So whats up with him here. I read one of his blog posts few days back. He talks about how Salesforce tried to acquire in non-open fashion and how he rejected them outright. It was very good post. It drives the point like a nail hitting its target. Top CEO can communicate and dissipate information to everyone - its employees, investors, competitors, public - through his/her blog more effectively. Now you need not conduct big meetings, give number crunchig figures and explain your comapny's vision and plans. Just a web blog with backed up story, people will listen and take notice. I certainly second Kiruba's thoughts here.
And yesterday, a sudden interest on Indian podcasts sprung on me. So was searching for some good podcasts that deals with Indian tech and business stuff. I don't know if I found a good one, but surely an interesting one. IndiCast is the one I am talking about. If I am not wrong, they do three podcasts in tech, business and some interview kind of show. I was listening to their business podcast. It is a conversation between a guy and a girl (both of them MBA grads). They speak about business in India and the related stuff in dialogue-cum-informal chat like fashion (think, they are just out of school). They want information to reach common people. That's how they define their shows. What amazes me these people know lot of stuff and speak amazingly simple manner which make you wonder about how many hours they spend doing their home work. I downloaded all of their audio casts. Will be listening to them in coming days.
I will end this post here with some info that I am planning to write about my experiences, bargainings, questionings, telephone bills & "starrings" from my co-workers, when I dealt (still dealing) with a personal loan.
Update: This one from Indicast is too good. Harsha Bhogle speaks his heart. Do check it out.
Update: About Sridhar Vembu in Forbes site.
Quoting from here:
This is ridiculous. I blame their innocence. Imagine, she is grown up, put yourself in her shoes and think how her life would be. Will she lead a normal life? Certainly no. Though she is healthy now, she might develop medical complications as she grows. So it is always better do the required medical assistance at the young age. Even she grows up healthily, mostly, she will grow up with skewed understanding of life and people. Are we not obstructing her right to live as a normal person? Who will be responsible for her? Her parents? I think they might not, given their innocence level. Perhaps, Goddess Durga herself?
We should somehow put a full stop, to our irrational superstitious ideas on religion and start looking for a very healthy, inquiring, tolerant spiritual society.
Write your thoughts in comments section.
This scene at 80 feet road in Koramangala, Bangalore (near Sony World). This lorry occupied most of the road space leaving small gap for other vehicles. 
The traffic in Bangalore is getting worse everyday. For a 7km ride from my home to office often takes me 45 mins in a two wheeler! This is ridiculous. The one thing I hate here is the traffic. I appreciate the initiative ToI has taken - UnlockBangalore. This will create awareness and as well as effective solutions by the people who ultimately suffer. Government should be ashamed of these infrastructure woes. The new Airport story will make the lives of travellers even more pathetic.
In one of the campaign ads of ToI, it is given that almost 1000 vehicles are being added to this city of narrow roads, everyday! If this rate continues, I think, there will be a time, where one should walk on vehicles rather than on roads to go to any place. Fantasy!
Even today morning, while crossing very small junction in a non-crucial service road, I waited for 15 mins! My eight month experience of traffic here, I observed that everyone wants to turn on every possible side and get out of sight as soon as possible causing chaos. Due to some bunch of idiotic guys, the whole area gets jammed for long time making more victims of trafficophobia!
What is my contribution? here it is - by increasing the rate. Rate of what? The Rate of addition of vehicles to the Bangalore roads. Increasing it to 1001 vehicles/day. How? this is how.
I was brought upon with this Newspaper for almost all of my childhood. Once my father's friend advised me to read this paper, daily from top to bottom irrespective whether I understand it or not. This advice I got when I was 12 year old. He gave me that advice for whatever reasons he had in his mind. Following the advice, my father subscribed to "The Hindu" for the first time. From then, till I completed my college, this newspaper was the interface through which I saw the world and learned things which were not told in schools.
My mornings always starts with this newspaper. I eagerly wait for those supplementary pages: Thursday's Science & Technology - which kindled my interests in science, Saturday's "Young World", Tuesday's "Open Page" (only I look for "Know your English" column), the "Folio" magazine that comes along with paper. I still have one edition of Folio in my racks. To me, the worst thing this newspaper did is to discontinue this magazine.
I grew up till my high school with all these weekly special sections. When I was in junior college, first thing my English teacher advised to read the center pages (editorial) of "The Hindu", which was never for me that time, as it looked some Greek and Latin. I used to find facts and interesting info and paste them in an album like book, which I constantly updated. This I treasure even now. When I look those books, nostalgia strikes me, bringing me the memories of hours spent in reading, cutting and pasting. One article I remember often when I think about those works (even now, while writing), is an article about 'Asteroid hitting earth in October 2028' in 'Science & Technology' supplementary. In that article, NASA predicted an Asteroid might hit earth at precise date & time and their plans to overcome the event, which otherwise, if happens, it might bring significant impact on earth. This shocked me and I used to continually share this info with all my friends and relatives. They patted me as if I myself predicted the event!! Nostalgia!!
When at college, I used to read editorial regularly and I spent first few hard weeks, to get the hang of it and I then started to appreciate it. Then, editorial page became the first page of the day. I appreciated the language and style of writing. It was excellent and some times I get dumbstruck with awe. Those were the days, I used to proud myself of having understood the editorial completely with help of a dictionary. Now I guess, those moments will never return.
Slowly, I started to see the decline in the quality of editorial, but still continued to read and at one point of time, after I started to go to work, I stopped to titles of editorials because of its lame topics and deteriorating quality in the write-ups. I heard people praise about this newspaper for its minimal advertisements but, slowly the Ads took most of the spaces and the content went back ground.
There was nothing worth to remember anything in the paper. All the sections which I assiduously followed were gone. Poor quality of content and old styled reporting invited wrath of its readers like me. There is no freshness and it is lagging a decade back, I think. All my friends who I know, grew up with this paper like me, shared my views. I once thought, because of strong market hold, this newspaper has in Chennai, it is surviving. Some one will surely see the decline of this 130 year old and take the lead. In the process, this would create intense competition among the dailies to give the best to their audience. This is what is happening now. Times of India is entering the monopolistic waters.
There are lot of noise in blogging circles about the bias coverage of Tibetan protests in this newspaper. You can find them here, here and here. I don't have an idea on this news. But, once I went through the blog posts, I realized the awareness of decline of quality of this news paper is spreading fast. This is good news for ToI and other dailies, but not certainly for this "Chennai people lover".
Update: The Hindu does it again via Desi Pundit
I got my first mobile phone at the end of my 3rd year of engineering. It was Nokia 2600. It was a basic phone (not even Radio in that set), which cost me around 5k. Though I had chance of buying a better model that time, I was satisfied with the lower end model for a simple reason I held - "Let me buy a better and higher end mobile when I start earning".
My first mobile was good and I had it for 3 years. When I was into work for almost a year, I proposed an idea of buying a mobile worth 15 k to my dad. He was shocked to hear and yelled at me saying that it was equivalent to his monthly income! But I was adamant. I bought a cool Sony Ericsson w610i. This phone was not that popular, thought it is sleek, faster than its cousin w810i, good web browser, auto-focus, RSS reader.... but it has its own glitches, for example photos taken are not proper under poor light ambiance. When I started to look for online reviews of w610i , I can see one comment that pervaded everywhere - the unconventional keys. In fact, I went for this phone for its keys. 'Be unique' is my policy!
After seeing the Apple iPhone, man, that phone I want to possess like my wife. My genetic math tells me to continue with the current one, until the current investment worth stretching and till sufficient surplus have been accrued to possess the beauty.
I think, Apple changed the way phones would be looked by people in the future. Now, people will start to look more & more for data & video apps & services than just voice calls. And the recent developments from Apple iPhone to Google's Android OS to LiMo, excites me like anything. Why Google suddenly jumping and investing hugely in mobile space ( read Robert Cringley write-ups), simply made me awe-struck. Now, I am starting to digest vaguely the whole idea that our lives in future will revolve in & around Mobile phone. The newly introduced smart phones by LG, Sony Ericsson et all in the recently concluded GSMA World Mobile Congress, Barcelona, are just mind blowing. I love SE phones and I already picked my upgrade (specs here) before changing to the coolest one - Apple's iPhone.
click on pic to enlarge the image Now-a-days the advertisements by the Telecom companies are getting creative and better. Airtel's ad (Barriers break..) is bit touchy, but Vodafone's ads are simply superb. It either makes you chuckle or amuse about the thought process of making the ad or make you run towards the nearest stores!
And this Airtel ad in today's The Times of India, I love it!
Whenever I hear people going to US, UK, Canada or some damn place outside India regarding their on-site assignment, it bugs me off. Every one in the Indian software industry knows, the on-site assignment opportunity is just a lucky affair, due to number of reasons. I don't want to pour my heart on them (did enough pouring with my friends).
Now, people (friends) have found new way of informing about their trip. They forgot the age-old telephone to mails, chat and newly Orkut updates! Thanks to Orkut, now people get updated when their pals change their profiles. Now, on-site ppl just update the country and city fields and the mass broadcast to friends happens. Take a look at the following pic. The top portion of the image is a mail and the bottom ones are Orkut profile updates!
Nothing beats having to see places, where most of us plan ten times before deciding, at the expense of employer. Few of my friends told me thats a pleasure to go, except when your are fumed by your official work! It doesn't need genius of a mind to guess the correctness of above fact. But when a person is lamenting as I do, and then if that person get mails like below ones from his so called US returned friends, it #&%@# you out of life.
A snapshot of Inbox
P.S.:
To those people whose names are included in the images: Enjoy your stay and keep sending whatever you want to. :)
It was 29th August, evening 7 pm. Me and my friend returning to our rented cum shared (by four people) house in Bangalore. We were the first to arrive from work. We could see bedroom light bulb switched on from the road. My friend was in all form of mood to rip one of our another living mates for not switching off the light when he last left the house. The light bulb was all burning for the whole day.
When I reached for the lock of the main door of our house, I could sense something odd. The main lock pad was covered with a plastic cover. I removed it and searched for the lock, only to find the lock missing!!! In fact, lock hook was broken half. Me and my friend got shocked at the very moment. The Initial thought of burglar still inside the house with some country side weapon (thought insp
ired by many tamil movies) instilled chill in our spines but we dismissed it since the padlock is locked from outside. Next we rushed inside to find out what all missing. We could see the burglar had tried his/her hand on everything available in the bedroom shelves and left things untouched in the living room.
* The quality of the pics are not good. 
The rest of our two living mates came and checked their belongings. The things went missing left us amusing. Few things were stolen and few very valuable things were left intact! Three things were stolen - a gold coin, Nokia 1100 phone & Sony digital camera. The gold coin was in a box along with couple of silver coins. But the silver coins were left as they were. Along with the silver coins, a Sony Ericsson phone (high end model), couple of unused Gold credit cards, pen drive, TV, passports, packaged computer devices and a brand new pair of Reebok shoes left untouched by the burglar!
We are happy rather than grieving about this burglary since, if things like credit cards, passports were stolen it would had put us in big trouble, since some of us are to travel to US in few months time. The thief had very good snack filled burglary, cos the plastic bag I mentioned, was filled with remains of Pistachios, which were brought by one of our friends from US to have them as side dish in Friday nights boozing. Unlucky dude!
We were affected by the incident to such an extent that we started to crack jokes like this.
The thief must be a woman cos the stolen things and their intentions behind are:
1. Camera - Might be this female thief is an aspiring model.
2. Mobile Phone - According to an unknown survey, the average hours spent on phone by women are greater than men. You might ask men also spend equal amount of time on other end. But what I meant is the time spent talking on the phone! So this female burglar had her own obvious reasons to have mobile phone (and that too Nokia 1100 and not the higher end model of Sony Ericsson).
3. Gold coin - No explanation needed.
What a World Cup final it was? One wrong shot, World Cup slipped away! I think, both teams deserve to be champions of this format of the game.
“There's such a thin line between winning and losing.” ~ John R. Tunis
Its been two years, I started blogging. So far 72 posts (not bad number!). It started with a post describing an unique experience in one of my college days. Down the time, I declared, re-declared in many of the posts stating that I have re-started blogging after long time giving an irrelevant reason of my return after a gap! I have changed blog page themes and the topics many a time. The topics ranged from super flopped 10K PC to Einstein's childhood photo post to latest Google product introduced to new broadband technology - BOP to a more serious post about Gandhi to personal experiences on teenage crush, learning table tennis, priceless real time learnings from real people, last day post and thanks giving to an insane post....... the list goes on to 72. I generally feel and also admit that I need to improve a ton in terms of quality and style of my writing. And more importantly the types of content I pen here should also be align to interests of mine and yours!. Hope, I will better myself in every post in coming days.
Most of the time, when I see Karan Thapar interviewing an important person, I will be immersed in awe due to his vast repertoire of knowledge, his unique style of questioning coupled with his charisma. I have been seeing his shows, earlier HardTalk India in BBC and now Devil's Advocate in CNN IBN, though not regularly.
Last week, he interviewed Mr. Sitaram Yechury of CPI-M about the latest & hottest topic - Indo-US nuclear deal. This is most happening topic, which perhaps decides our government's future and India's energy needs and it is the headline grabber in almost all the newspapers and TV new channels at present. I think, this will continue until some outcome emerges and before it fades away from the short term public memory. After watching the interview, you will be struck with two things. First, you will be awestruck with how Karan Thapar blasts his guest with pertinent questioning backed up with his wide knowledge in Indo-US N deal and second, you will be lightning struck how really, our political leaders want to bring positive changes to the country, setting aside their ideologies.
Mr. Yechury went on lambasting during the interview, at one point he asks Karan Thapar to speak like an Indian! Obviously, he lost his ground in the interview and at the same time Karan Thapar also showed unusual but subtle motive to 'prove a point' on the show. A mixed response in the comment section of the video says it all.
It was some day in Feb 2007. It was around 7:00 pm in the evening. After a day of hard work, I ventured out to play Table Tennis (TT) in my employer's campus with my friend, who has the same skill as mine in playing the game. Our TT skills are at the best you can call it as "newbie" skills. While me and my friend trying our hands in the game, two people came near us. There were couple of tables present, so we got to share the table in round robin basis. Those two people - I guess one is Project leader and other his subordinate. The subordinate was a new babe of the campus at that time! They came and proposed an idea which made me feel like earth shaking.
Me and my fella formed a team and that girl and her supervisor formed another. Then the actual story started. We started to play. Initially, I thought at least the girl would be in my level in terms of TT skills, so I should be competing with only one guy. But in reality the story was different. She was just kept hitting in the right areas and scoring points with her quick reflexes. The earth shaking feeling was no more. It was replaced by "earth devastated by an asteroid" feeling. We played 5 matches and our team lost all of them thanks to the way me and my poor fella played and to her serves and returns. I wont say she was the best, but better than her supervisor. After one agonising hour, the show finally came to an end.
Men's DNA make-up is such a way that it is very hard to digest a defeat at the hands of women unless they are proven exceptionally talented. I fell prey to this so called male ego and it hit me like anything. There were lot of questions running in my mind, like "what would she think of my no performance?", "what on earth made me to play like this and fail to give a fight?" and things like that. And my fellow pal is no mood for it. He displayed no emotions. No regrets.
That moment something drove me to take up a challenge. A challenge to learn and play TT. From the next day onwards, I started to stay late in the evening in office, though my work demanded in some days, and practiced TT. I started to watch how good players play and then tried to implement in my game. Me and my friend practiced TT whenever we got time. We played with lot of good playing people. We lost many matches, but we were improving our game. This made me to play and practice more. As days passed, we actually started to win matches with our good play. Our own game and my skills improved greatly.
The wonderful thing is, more and more I started to play well and appreciate the game, I also started to forget the incident which triggered me to learn the game. Eventually, one fine day, by pure chance, we played against the same girl and her supervisor. This time, we overwhelmed them with our range of shots and serves. We won good number of matches against them and with lot other people. And I can say I have improved my game to a great level.
Success is a relative term. If I consider the level to which I have improved my TT skills is a success, then behind this success, that girl is the reason. So I should thank her for this little success of mine! No wonder this saying is so popular - "Behind every successful man, there is a woman" :)
These photos are some of the snapshots of one of the funnier and creative resumes I have come across.
This guy uses HTML tags for the headings & for endings!! I Also I heard from one of my HRs, that one of the resumes she got is actually a C++ program. She said that if you execute the program (resume), you get his resume in actual proper format as output!!
Isn't it creative way of expressing and showcasing your skills to your prospective employer.
P.S.: I did that hiding of CTC components in second photo. :)
Recently I met with four people. They gave me insights on things I never cared to give a glance at. But there are true learnings waiting for me.
The four people from four different walks of life. One is a software engineer, one is from Indian Navy, another working in an orphanage and last person is a plastic article vendor.
Each one is unique in terms of their background, their aspirations, their priorities in their lives and their attitude towards life. I had enough time to interact with all these people individually, to get good insights. The platform for all these meetings is a car-driving school. All came (including me) for one goal, to get a four wheeler license!! Let me tell you about these people before going to my insights. This may stretch the lines of this post a longer, pls bear with me till then.
Software Engineer:
This guy is at very comfort zone. Good job, bulky wallet, went couple of times for on site assignments, married and well settled. Man from stone age never satisfied with what he has. So as this guy. (Incl me, but few are exceptions). From day one, I were discussing with him about how he is working, how much he earned during on site assignments, about his esops, projects he had handled and other things related to his job. He is some kind of confident and displayed "knows all" attitude. He is in some kind of thinking like what life can give him back as though he has given out all his best.
The Indian Navy Personnel:
This person is basically from Kerala. He is in thirteenth year of service at present. I think this is quite an achievement by itself, given the fact the kind of jobs and the packages comes with them, now a days in the market. He has his family in Kerala. Once a while he goes to his native. Half of the time, he mixes Mallu (Malayalam) with English while speaking. Had bit of hard time in understanding him. This person is working in Indian Navy. I had poor knowledge to differentiate between people working in navy , cargo and passenger line, until he enlightened me. He also some kind of not satisfied, and some kind of complaining about how his companions being payed handsomely in Cargo and in passenger ships and about his poor paying. He also did similar complains and blabbered about his job. For the first time I understood why Navy exercises are executed between the countries. His aspiration to get early retirement (15 years) and look for a good job outside to take care of his family for rest of his life.
The Plastic Vendor:
Couple of times, I saw this person bribing the trainer which irritated me. Once I caught him after the training, asked him why he is bribing, though he paid 2k rupees for the training. He answered that by bribing, he could get special attention. I condemned him saying that is not necessary and explained him that he can always demand from the trainer. This stuck this 44 year old (Age defies him, in this situation). Next day, I asked him why he want to go for a license. He wants to drive auto-rickshaws or taxis for his daily bread. He also told how he lost his money in all the small businesses he had done thru the years and landed up this way. He declared the amount he is spending (2k) for license, is huge for him to bear (This made me think how carelessly we spend money without knowing its true value). I can observe from his speech, how much financial adversity he had gone thru. He calls me as "Sir", to my embarrassment, as I am at least 20 years younger to him!! So ignorant, so unexcited. Life looks burden for him.
The "Orphanage" Teenager:
This person's story really moved me. He is used to be very punctual in trainings. One day, casually I asked him where he is working? He said he is working in Indian Railways. "Huh?" was my initial reaction. He looks like "just entered" college student. Asked him, what he is actually doing? He explained which I took good amount of time to re-ask and to understand. His actual work is to find children working in railway platforms, trains and stations. He tracks them, keep records on them and report them to his supervisors. He used to find children who are orphaned and handover them to their parents if their correct whereabouts are found or hand over them to a children orphanage nearby. Worst thing is, he informed me that if he finds the orphan child's parents, he or the orphanage people have to convince some of the parents to take their children back. I asked him, if he has given any designation to the job he is doing, just to find out he is really employed in Indian Railways. To my surprise, he never understood what I am trying to ask. He studied up to 9th std and after that he discontinued to take this job. I asked him why he haven't continued, for that he replied that he is not interested. I was thinking that his parents were responsible and asked him where he is put up with, for which he replied that shook me. He was brought up in the same orphanage for which he is working now. When he was telling this, I could see the pain not having some body to take care of, in his eyes. For the first time in my life, I understood that my so called problems are nothing before him. He is trying to get license as he wants to go to Dubai ( for applying passport, he needs proof. So this driving license will get him to get that). He is paying the training amount in installments.
India is certainly, a land of contrasts. There are people who never understand what starving is and there are people who have to fight for the same starving throughout their lives. Most of us, in comfort zone, never knew the real value of money and spend unnecessarily on extra foods, flashy clothes, films et all. The fraction of the amount spent on this can feed many families in our country.
We always compare ourselves with our peers. If we are not up to the mark with our peers, we complain (I am very good complainer. Ask some of my friends, they will tell you big stories) that we didn't have this, that et others. The software engineer always pours his lament on how his company not giving hikes, appraisals and other things. Though he is very much in comfort zone, he still laments. If he gets something, the lamenting won't stop, but it will take into some other shape. (My personal experience too).
The shrewd Keralite spent most of his youth to the services of Nation. And also he has his own expectations and lamenting. Though, much I didn't get from him, but he displayed courage and positive attitude towards his coming days.
Ignorance is bliss, says many. But this plastic vendor's ignorance may not be so. I understood life is unfair game. What made this person as he is now - ignorant, oblivious to the fact to the extent the external world is changing..... But this person is driven by one thing - his family.
The orphaned teenager really made me to realize two things. First, none of our problems are nothing if we face it. Second, I am very fortunate of not having to go thru the ordeal as he is going thru.
I am no more complainer from now on. :-)
