Oh My GAWD

hehe this post was to be about my vegas trip... but that can wait..

u have to watch these videos!! I wonder why did we sell off our premier padmini car!!



and watch this



as they say, old is gold! Go Premier Padmini!!

MS Technology Management : Decoded

It might be a late night with no action in Las Vegas that has prompted me to write this, but, I wanted to put this up for many reasons..

1) Frustration
2) Information
3) Education
4) Entertainment

Like our Marketing professor taught us, I am trying to segment, and then target different audiences of this blog: prospective students for MS Tech Program, bored internet blog visitors, and fellow people looking for jobs :)

So first the history: I was working rather well at naukri.com (India's biggest jobsite), when my boss kinda motivated me to quit my job. Alongside, I was very enamored by the product team at naukri, for it seemed they had the best of both the worlds. There was also a person called Sujith Nair. He was a dynamic project manager at naukri, who was someone I usually looked up to. But being the Taurean that I am, I didn't wanna take that much time (which was anyhow short) to get to where Sujith Nair was. Simultaneously, there were these new chaps recruited from ISB into naukri at seemingly ridiculous salaries... (grrr) and above all, I wanted a change!!!

So came into picture Technology Management.  My research on the internet for Technology Management (on  edulix.com, etc ) showed me a bunch of options, including MBA in Technology Management at Berkeley, MIT, EPFL Lausanne, and MS - Technology Management at UIUC (with one year course duration). I liked MS Tech at UIUC because the College of Business was ranked at 38 in the world (financial times), the program was at UIUC (a campus which has GREAT reputation), and this was a quick one year program (so I could get to earning money sooner). At that time ISB wasn't ranked in the global rankings (now in 2012 it's somewhere around 11 in the world), and IIMs were somewhere in the 100s... (plus I flunked CAT more than once :) )

I applied, kinda after the deadline, and made it in. I was very ecstatic about it!  And then the program started... The fact that MS Technology Management was a one year program made it a very intensive course work. And before we had even unpacked our bags, we ran into our first and most critical Fall career job fair. I did my part of selling, and got interviews from many great companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook (which I couldn't attend, and it turns out to be a VERY expensive mistake :) ), Expedia, Cashnet USA, Capital IQ, ZS Associates etc, and got great feedback from all of them. It seemed they were very interested in the Technology Management program and what it had to offer...But there were 3 things which stood out after this:

1) They weren't sure about what this Technology Management program was all about, and consequently there was a confusion about what profile they wanted me for.Some even asked me 'So where do we place you'!. So some companies interviewed me for a software engineer position and some did for pure marketing... a major mismatch.

2) I wasn't prepared enough with the MBA (which is what Technology Management is wrapped around) training to handle the interviews as yet. After all, it was just 4 weeks since we had come in, and were thrown in to compete with the one year MBAs... I was given a case interview when I didn't even know what that was...

3) I wasn't prepared even for the interviews where I thought I had a good chance. It takes at least 6 months ( in my opinion) to crack interviews at top companies, and I had only 1-2 months of clueless preparation effort. What I learned from this was that you MUST find out the 'what to dos', and 'how to dos' of interview preparation. Use career services, including engineering and business, your contacts and alumni to find that out.

As the program progressed into Spring semester, the whole course started to make sense. It is a great program in terms of what it teaches us... The bigger picture of technology and its management became clearer. I could now see the business value in the code I wrote, which till now I evaluated only on how smart it was and what cool things it could do... The holistic picture of Technology from Innovation, Supply chain, Process Management or financial perspective (like how should we value a dotcom) started appear clearly.

But sadly, there were more things happening in the 'happening' world, and the problem was multi-pronged:

1) some greedy people borrowed too much money and built houses with it, and caused the sub-prime crisis. (why does it always rain on me!!)
2) The fall semester job fair was gone and spring was mostly for internships (which we don't have scope for, unless one goes out of the way and extends the program)
3) The career services department seemed as clueless about this program as the companies were :p

so 'long story short' as a speaker in marketing class said, we have to search for companies, educate the companies about the MS Technology management program, fight the recession (by praying to God) and keep looking for jobs everywhere... The final thing I realized was that this is NOT an easy job.

But with all that said, we went to HP Labs for a visit and made a presentation about commercializing a technology they had developed. They were really impressed with the multidimensional analysis of the technology we presented. So I think we are on the right track... what we need is a lil bit of hard (harder) work, and a lil bit of luck...

For all the people who want to come in to technology management stream, ( from anywhere in the world) please make sure that you have a good amount (around 5 years) of technical experience, so that u have the technology in ur head before coming here to see how to manage it. It also depends on what u wanna be after you graduate from the program (don't join this program to 'enter' the management line). Also ensure that you understand what you want from the program, coz this is NOT a regular MBA and if you want to get into finance, accounting, marketing etc, this is NOT the program for you. this is simple and pure general management with a 'technology' focus (especially at MS Technology management- UIUC). So ur expertise will still be the technology u came from. Next, use UIUC's brand image and network. Make sure u make great contacts in fall semester, coz I m not sure how many would land great jobs then. Use these contacts later when u r ready to take the technology management interviews. Job hunting is mostly going to be a year long exercise, and u must start as soon as u get here. You will get better with time, but start making those contacts as soon as possible.

Good luck. (pray the recession gets over soon)

PS: I did land a job by the end of the may :) I joined this company after my OPT was processed, rather dramatically (But that needs a blog post of its own :) )
 

Confessions of a commitment shirker

This is my dedication to all those ppl who can never get to committing to sumone and then later crib about it :D enjoy!!


I think I have never done the romantic thing
A dozen roses and a diamond ring
many times I have been peeled and pricked
but I really couldn't feel a thing...

So is that a hormonal imbalance or a psychological one?
that I just cannot settle with anyone?

from 'Boys 2 Men' to 'Alanis Morisette'
Their lyrics never really conveyed any sense
Although there were those who 'waited and waited' for me to ask them out,
but got no returns for their perseverance..

heh.. so what on earth is wrong with me?
for she ain't good enuf, whoever she be?
well on second thoughts that isn't quite true.
coz I usually repent when the moment passes through

I guess I vindicate what my teacher once said,
'Oh my child u have an empty head'.... :P


And this is what our fellow commitment shirkers added:

"There was once a time when it was commitment i was afraid of
But now it seems it was actually me the pretty ladies were scared of"

A full lifecycle

One of my fish died yesterday... I did feel bad, but since this was not the first time my fish had died, I was kinda ok with it... So I did the required thing of taking the fish (named Gabdu after the Billoo comic character) out of the fish bowl and burying it out in the ground somewhere...

And today it is raining crazy! I can actually imagine that place where Gabdu is buried, and see the rain water falling on it. slowly nature will start re-transforming Gabdu into itself and after sometime, forces in the nature will use the same matter (of which Gabdu was made) to form another fish in someone else's bowl...

Life always comes a full circle...

And we are growing the fastest in the world...

this video talks about the sorry state of our cities. In which we live under stressful conditions, and eventually die young and unhappy... But I don't think we do anything to solve this... All this when unqualified, incompetent leaders (??? really leaders?) are elected time and again and suck our blood. We do retaliate via comedians who take a dig at them. And we watch this all in our apartments on inverter generated power, and go to sleep by 1 am and get up at 7 am to leave for office early due to the traffic jam...

Did we vote the last time???

Life in exile

If I look out of the window on my right, I see two planes. One is a Continental, and the other is Air Canada. And far away, one plane is getting to taxi to the runway and the other is waiting in line... there is a Chinese American girl sitting in front of me in this waiting arena. If I turn my head up I see a lot of white heads, some Indian heads, and a few African American ones too… far away I can see a Sardar Ji trying to doze off… I think this is as international an experience as one could get.

Thankfully I carried my laptop and had just one movie. Rang De Basanti…
Maybe it’s the movie playing on my head, but right now when I look up, my shoulders become broad by themselves…

It was only recently that I imagined the time when I would land back in New Delhi Airport. And when the whiff of my air would fill my lungs… and that’s when, I think for the first time, I almost had tears in my eyes.

So why the life in exile? I guess the question automatically transforms into what is life in exile. I don’t think I can speak for all Indians abroad, but for the few who do share my thought process, I think it is about trying to test yourself in a new world. The excitement of a different culture, new education, multicolored population… in short it’s about trying out something new…

More as a side effect, what this does to you is that is gives you a totally new perspective about your own self. I wrote sometime back that I felt very responsible for my actions as they could directly be ascribed to Indians in general… it’s a lots more than that.

Kuchh kar guzarne ko khoon chala khoon chala… the words from Rang De Basanti… I don’t think I’ve seen that fever in people from other countries. And that’s what makes the side effect a lot more than that… it is here that the complete picture of India screams out from behind the naukri.com’s ultra sleek coffee dispenser. It is here that the news of a 11 year old boy being burnt alive in Delhi pinches a lot harder than it would have, had I been in India. When the MP in Kerala yells at an airplane pilot, it feels a lot weirder now. Road rage, of which I was an integral part, now feels like an epidemic, which must be eradicated. It is here that the dirt that lies within us, although right now 10000 kms away from me, smears my face like never before.

And then when this time on Holi we put one Haldi ka Tika on each other’s foreheads, a huge rush of happiness gripped me from somewhere deep inside… that one Tika was my bond with my culture back home. A feeling that even if I am far away from my homeland, it is still inside me like a single water stream running through the heart of a huge desert, connecting it to Gangotri…

So then back to the original question. Why life in exile? Because without it, I wouldn’t have begun thinking the way I do now. Before leaving India, whenever we won a cricket match, I would say to my brother, ‘Jai Hind’. Now, whenever I read even a small article on India in any magazine, it automatically comes out. While I am making this blog on MS word, it doesn’t recognize a lot of Hindi words. Maybe other Indians like me here will learn the skills to create an Indian version of Word, where I will not have to do an ‘Add to Dictionary’ while writing ‘Sardar Ji’. Bill gates said in his presentation to senate here that India and china have a long while to go before they get the right management structure to parallel that of US. Mr. Gates, I am here to shorten that time gap.

Jai Hind

this video says that a police constable, with whatever salary he gets, gets a 100 Rupee increment in 12 years, and 200 rupee increment in 17 years...

lets do a small calculation. at my last work place my increment was around 50% (i think) and I got around 2-3 lakh increment a year, in 2 years of work. on 100 rupee after 12 years makes 1200 bucks extra after 12 years.

are you serious??? i think we spend that much in 2 weeks on fun and movies!!! no wonder there is corruption in indian police. Guys is that the salary/compensation structure of Indian police?

if with this salary these people are corrupt, i think it is justified. I might just give these guys an extra 100 bucks next time they catch me...

kabhi kabhi hi prayaas hota hai
ek komal si cheez ko paane ka
shayad hi kabhi mujhko ehsaas hua hai
ek meetthe sapne ko chhu jane ka

jisse masumiyat tapakti hai
khuda ki kaifiyat jhalakti hai
kareeb jaun to aisa lage
jaise saari kaaynaat usi mein basti hai

agar hakeekat hai yeh to kya paoon main usko?
ya door se hi usey nihaarta rahun...
kahin is pal ko kho na dun,
khud mein hi is khwaab ko nikhaarta rahun

boy!! where were these people hiding till now!
the singer in the post one below, and the one here!!!




and this one




The world is still beautiful...

Chappals not allowed in 5 star Discs in Mumbai

rofl.. (roll on the floor laughing).

So what is that all about? You cannot wear chappals in 5 star discos in Mumbai and the State Govt is setting up a committee to make sure that people do get to wear chappals in those 5 star hotels.

I still didn't quite get it.... ok if u get a designer chappal made by Rohit bal, or any such fashion super duper entity, and it goes very very well with ur dress, would you still be ok by not getting to wear it to the 5 star disc?

Or if u wear a torn out very ugly looking pair of canvas shoes (the PT ones) to a disc, should you be 'allowed' (as if what you wear should matter)?

At a conference here on 60 years of India's Independence, people were discussing that India has still not de-colonised. And thats what the govt representative interviewed by CNN IBN termed as 'angrezon ka hangover'. I think it is also about the lack of ingenuity on the part of the hotels having this self disparaging rule. Since these hotels and discs are only now beginning to be a part of the common man's daily life, these hotels haven't yet come to terms with the Indian customer, having copied the western way for style, rules, 'manners', etc..

I am sure all the hotel owners must have been very good cheaters in their school times...

Man I am falling in love with this woman...





Seems like out of this world!
Damn she seems elder to me :( (if that makes a difference that is)

When Raju Lost faith in Ganga...

Remember that movie starring Raj Kapoor, 'Jis desh mein ganga behti hai' ? Raj kapoor played the role of a guy from I think Banaras, and goes on to use his sanskar and values to transform a group of dacoits. I think the assumption in the movie was that Raju had complete faith in the values of the mother land.

Cut to Champaign in US. I have met a lot of NRIs here. Some have no traces of India in them, some still have a very thick Indian accent, some dress in ways you wouldn't imagine on Indians, and then on the other hand you would have people dressed in Salwar kameez, but as soon as they open their mouth, you get amazed at the American accent that hits your ears.

It is interesting to interact with these people, as they aren't Indians anymore, but thats what they identified as, or they identify themselves as (when they have nothing Indian in them). So in a restaurant, you would hear an Indian American talking to her American friends talking about Aishwarya Rai and saying that Indian people have beautiful names, and that Aishwarya Rai has a portugese ancestory, as Indians don't have the genes for such beautiful green eyes... Or I heard another NRI in a party saying that Indian people gang up against NRIs coz they are rich and if your car hits a person in India, they would get after you, coz you are a rich NRI and thus you should be punished for that.

I wondered, what was the reason for these people to leave India and come to US... Was it the land of opportunities, or was it something else? I was going for an interview to a Multinational company in a city in US, and my cab driver was an Indian. he said to me : 'Hope that you are interviewed by a white guy. if you get an Indian, he might ask you for money to let you in...'. Oh my God! I thought. I knew thats so not true, but that exposed me to another perception of India, that I have mostly been unaware of. That of a very common man, who still undergoes a very torturous life of subsistence living, where bribery is still the order of the day, and you have to fight for basic amenities. Indians here are either the most prosperous immigrants who live in Silicon valley or they are these poor Indians who couldn't find a place for themselves in India. Probably most of you who would read this blog from India , would invariably have come from backgrounds where we have either shut out the ugly side of India, or have created a comfort zone around it.

So why do people leave their own home country to come to such a culturally diverse land where you are mostly cut off from the main stream? I could come up with a few reasons, but this is NOT an exhaustive list by any means....

Lost faith:

One of the people I know here lost his home to a tenant, went to the courts, got nothing done for years, and then had to accept an out of court settlement, finally paid money to the tenant to vacate his house. In his words, there is no 'enforcement agency in India'. Every time I talk to him about India, I can see his hurt face. The face of a man who expected his environment to provide him with a decent living standard. Most of his words seethe with a latent anger towards the system. He got a chance to get rid of it, and he did. He lives a modest and comfortable life here.

Never had faith:

Some people here came coz they always believed that India wasn't a place for them. They prolly pick up the foreign accent most easily, curse India in everything they see, and eventually become the worst ambassadors for us. I have met these people in parties here, who would narrate their stories in India, when surprisingly all things that happen to them are bad things, and seemingly they find nothing bad in their current country of residence. (I can point out a few right here).

A special third category:

Is of the people who were born here, but were forced to remain Indian at home, and then left out in the open foreign air to convert into what we call ABCDs. These are a very special variety. Some of them would wear salwars and shirts which were in fashion maybe 20 years back, and when you see them, you would think they have just come in from a remote small town in India. But as they open their mouths, they spew out American english, with 'Oh my GAAWDs', 'This is soo kewwool' etc etc.

To a person I met recently, I had to say that India she knows and India that I come from are two entirely different countries! These people evaluate their India trip from the American perspective. So Mumbai trains are 'Sow ppphackked'. And that you have to get into a local train while it is running! (Can't you wait till it stops or till you get accustomed to it??). They are scared of lizards, and almost all lizards fall on them when they are in India (maybe coz they are NRIs and lizards want to punish the rich NRIs), and so on...

Some of the things that happened to them are real, and maybe, as Indians, we are just used to them. I was just reading the article in the Economist : "What's holding India Back", and the reasons mentioned there were pretty much on the above lines. I agree there still are differences in the standard of living here for an common man vs his counterpart in India. Maybe studying these NRIs gives us another perspective of what we need to change in our system to restore the faith Raju had in Ganga...

Why I don't wanna work for Infosys

Well that's because I don't like the Blackberry phone. The blog could end right here, but then if I don't explain it better, you would keep me in the same category as Infosians, who I dislike anyway...

So what's the big deal? It happened like this... We are a bunch of Indian students here at an American university, which is kinda considered one of the best in the world, and we feel quite proud belonging to this place.

Even more so when the job fairs happen. There are companies abound that come here looking for great talent and increase their organization's productivity. All the stalls are brightly lit and the recruiters stand outside their stalls to 'reach' out to the students, so that they could talk to them and see if they are a good fit. Even if they are not, they are more than willing to listen to you and explore whatever opportunities there could be for you. Even if it turns out that there aren't any opportunities available, you would walk away thinking that you had the best conversation you wanted to have, and too bad there weren't opportunities, but you would want to try again...

The stalls are a story in them all together. draped in their company colors, the stalls are all lit up shining bright. These people go an extra mile to get their stalls looking great for people to get attracted like a moth to fire.

So I was having a good time in the job fair, talking to different recruiters, and having a quality time there... And then I walk into this next row of stalls... this row was kinda different. It had mostly hardware and earth moving equipment companies. As I walk down through the aisle, there came this corner... the stall was blue, and it seemed that either the lighting was not done, or some of the bulbs had prolly blown away. The caption there said, 'The world is flattening.. are you ready?' hmm... when i looked around there was just one person in that stall, and just above his wavy hair, I read the name, Infosys...

The recruiter here was kinda weird. He was sitting behind the table stall and was totally screwed on to his Blackberry Phone! a few people passed in front of him, and he didn't seem to notice. I thought it might be his boss on the phone, and I would come later...

So I took a round of the hall and then went back to the stall. This time the recruiter was talking to someone. So as was the case with other stalls, I stood in line waiting. Generally, recruiters tried to give equal time to all people waiting in the line, and made sure that the line didn't feel ignored. But the guy here at Infosys, looks at me, and says 'I am talking to this person, and will take time. You can go and have a round of the hall, and come back after 5 mins.' Well, umm taken aback by that, I smiled and said, OK...

So I took a round and went back to the stall.. The chat was still going on, and now the recruiter was actually sitting on the side of his table and it seemed that it was more of a gossip mode than recruiting. And he was still playing with the Blackberry in his hands while gossiping with that kid...

'aah nevermind' I thought, and moved on to Yahoo.. By the way, I went for the final rounds of interviews with Yahoo at SF, and they have a rocking atmosphere and campus. And ofcourse, you are treated very well there...

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindra Nath Tagore

The Helix of a Year

It's that time of the year again. And in fact it is so imminent and a surety every year that I can only draw an analogy with a doggy's heat period, or me scoring a zero in at least one test out of the ten I take.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't try to avoid this from happening. In fact I have had more chances than others to avoid this event from unfolding every single year. But more like a conscript, I am always pulled in to this black hole.

Imagine it like this. let's look at it from 365 days away. In other words, the day has just passed, and I am resolved to make sure that this doesn't happen the next year. And now I am working towards it, slowly slowly revolving and gravitating towards the center of the helix, which is the 366th day, or exactly one year away...

If you guessed that to be the CAT test (or rather flunking in it), heheh think again. Although ur guess is a worthy second, it is a wee bit away from the actual numero uno. I am talking about Valentine's day, and the fact that no matter what I do across the year, no matter how many relationships i build around the year somehow, always, incorrigibly, I am always rendered alone by the time 14th feb arrives. And I am as nonplussed about it as your are! The only good thing I learnt from it is that I can be ruthlessly accurate and consistent in my performance.

Well Whatever is the big deal about 14th of feb anyways... I usually am in a hangover after celebrating my bro's birthday, and am mostly not in a position to shift gears to the other love in my life. (umm if she is still around that is). But usually the way it happens is this...


Date : 14th march,
One Month past from the last debacle:
I am thinking about this girl next door. She is pretty and seems to have a charm about herself. (I didn't quite think this way 2 months back, but desperate times call, ahem, for desperate measures)

3 Months past:

I see this girl in my parking lot again! I smile at her, and she smiles back!!! (think of sumthing funny think of sumthing funny!), and I crack a one liner joke. She ignores and goes away. (shit).


3 and a half months past:

I see this girl at the grocery store, and, although I don't have to buy that thing, I go to there to buy that anyways... after all, what if I run out of it sooner than I thought? I ask for a diff brand and specifically say that I don't want the brand this girl bought... It worked!!! she asks me whats wrong with her brand! :D (yahooo) and I tell her of the wildest ever criticism of that brand and that company. We walk back to our society together, and talk about loads of things right from what she is doing and what she wants to do, to the weird security guard we have and the creepy noises that come from his room in the night when we are out for a night walk... I find out if she is on orkut, she is :D


4 Months past :

we have been scrapping regularly on orkut, and have become pretty updated on each other now... I open another tab on Mozilla and find out the latest movies in Delhi. Tell her that I have 3 4 tickets with me and i can give her 2 if she wanted... rest is .. history :D


10 Months past, 2 more to go for Valentines day:

Well we have been going around for all that while now, but I am not sure if I rlly like her.. I mean she is good for a time pass, but thats just about it... She has been cozying up a lot and I am not tooo comfortable about that! I now begin to slip out of this by making excuses. lame ones even by my 10 year old cousin's standards... but i still go ahead. There is a fight back.. she tries to hold on, and that freaks me out even more!.. This goes on for a fortnight....

11 Months past, 1 one month to Valentines day:

She calls me and confronts me directly. 'You have been trying to avoid me for the last 2 months now. What have I done!'... umm errr.. I cannot say to her that she isn't ALL that interesting. can I!?

I dodge the question, and give her global gyaan about how the world is changing and that there is a recession in the offing, and I am working hard to save for the rainy day. She doesn't buy. I then say that sometimes relationships are better taken slowly and gradually.. we are great friends, and I think I was taking a lil too much of you. I wanted to make sure that I don't step into your space, coz I respect a woman of your caliber...

This is the final sentence she says to me:

"You are a Dog".

(As if I didn't know that)

12 months past: date 14th feb

I gifted my bro the best thing I could buy, and revel in his happiness. but somewhere, I wish I had someone I could gift today and spend this day dreaming about the life to come with someone...


And then I resolve that I wouldn't let this happen again, and step into the helix again...

Raj Thakrey and his myopic utopia

read this if you don't know wats happening...

I couldn't have imagined a guy who from an outsider's perspective was kinda forward looking, shoot himself in his foot. So after Mumbai being the financial capital of the country for the last 100 years, and a lakh people from across the country shunting into the city everyday, we hear pleas to uphold Maharashtrian culture in Mumbai!

hehe just that Maharashtrians would now be having loads of other world's in them neways... lalu yadav, being the politician he is, was quick and right in pointing out that Raj Thakrey is a child in politics. Well Mr Yadav, although I don't like you, but on this I have to agree, and even add that this is an outrageously stupid move by the young Thakrey struggling to make a place for himself in politics... Ironically here is a guy who met Michael Jackson and was commented on his 'nice jacket' ... he could have also added, 'peanut head' to that compliment...

India is moving into middle class, and middle class doesn't quite care about where they are.. in Mumbai or Delhi, or Jamshedpur, if they are able to make a good living... Also, wasn't it more abt India shining than Mumbai bright? and in fact, since most of Mumbai's revenues come from all across the country, if the nation reacts to this, God save Mr Raj Thakrey... or instead, should God even bother saving a jacka**??

Sorry Mr Thakrey, hope u learn, or please don't try looking for job in places other than Mumbai, and in ur special case, u prolly dont even have a Prime Minister, coz Maharashtra doesn't have one as yet.

This simply had to be on my blog..
taken from nachiketa, a colleague from my last work place..

Kolkata Fire
Test of laws of physics and civil Engineering

Well the fire in this part of Kolkata has been on for 2 days now... It's sad and funny at the same time. Sad coz obviously it is a bad thing. and funny coz a government cannot control a fire in a building??? (laugh out loud). Well as I write this, the fire is still gazing on, guzzling the stuff that comes in way, while inept firemen and government and 'call for centre's help' (laugh out loud again, but this time, followed by another loud sound of anguish)

Cities like Kolkata,Delhi (at least Old Delhi, trans Yamuna), Mumbai (I guess Chawri bazaar etc) have seen the absence of government responsibility and civil callousness for such a long time that the only thing thats holding the city together are the basic laws of physics and civil engineering. And when the buildings held together by just them are exposed to even slightest of dangers( like this fire) they just explode out of proportion, accounting for losses of around 200 crores (and counting) in this case..


Looking at this incident from a management's perspective, I can only compare it to the other places (right now only US). In order to make a place safe and working, we not only need technology, which is anyway a small part of the picture, but also a set of processes which are then conveyed by the enforcement agencies to the participating public, and then implemented religiously. A huge population and sub standard bureaucracy just adds to the flavour of the problem...

So how could this be prevented? I guess it has to start with the people who know about this problem, actually making noise about it. And then spread the word just like this fire... Maybe by telling everyone to teach everyone about sane practices to follow in their buildings and then asking ur friends and foes(yes them too) to vote while keeping these factors in mind..

utopian? well to quote Rang De Basanti: 'Koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota.. usey perfect banana padta hai'.

Mumbai and Kochi and the rest of India's shame

Well the new year was gr8 for me and my friends, when we celebrated the new year at our apartment...

Not so for a few women who were visiting India for new year's... I have a few American friends here who are visiting India for new year's, and I was kinda waiting for them to come back so that I could ask them about how they found out my country!

But after watching the news about a few foreigners being molested in Mumbai and Kochi (apart from many other instances which were not even reported i guess), I am left with shame and no words to ask my friends about... The Swedish being interviewed in Kochi was kinda right when he actually deplored the whole country for the doing of a silly uncouth 17 year old. I am sorry, Our visitors... Next time I meet any foreigner who knows abt this incident, I would be categorised with that molester...

I think the stuff we hear about the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' in India is actually right there in front of us. The better offs, which are mostly the cream of the country, go out and market India. I am filled with some kinda pride when I see the Incredible India ad on Chicago Airport. But when these foreigners land in India, they are exposed to these 'have nots' created by us the 'haves' (maybe by not paying our taxes, by being greedy, or simply by not caring about them). When they do a wrong thing, it becomes a shame on all of us.

And as India becomes more of a global destination, more of this will come to fore. The dirty underbelly of India will rub more with the rest of the world. If we are to be the next great thing, we must take up our responsibility and do our part in rectifying these follies.

I remember the 'each one teach five' campaign poster in my school, which was kinda vetoed by all students, since they had to study for their final exams! Lets actually start volunteering to teach at say CRY institutions, or orphanges. Our if the school fees for our maids' kids is a petty 300 rupees a month, maybe we can start funding that, or at least pool it.

I am gonna start participating in the ASHA foundation here, that collects funds for supporting students in India. If we have to pull our 1 billiion strong country out of the mess, we gotta start now.

Schizophrenico-hallucinato-totallyjoblesso-dyselixcosis ...

Yah i think that's what comes closest to what I have been suffering from ever since I was 5 years old... And why alluva sudden am I writing about this? Bingo! another proof that I have that disorder. ( I should call up my 10 std maths teacher to tell him that I can finally prove theorems :D ).

My first memory of that is when my unassuming mom sent me to the next door grocery store in Pradeep Market to get some sugar ( Umm i guess it was sugar, coz it cannot be what I think it was). Well, on the way I saw this scooter, pale green in color, which was I think a Bajaj Priya. Since obviously the color was very amusing, and it reminded me of an Italian movie I had seen then, I thought how an Italian would speak while riding his scooter in Italy... what if he actually hit an American while riding, and they get into a fight? and in this, one of my classmates (Montu Sharma) gets involved, and the Italian and American then end up beating the shit out of Montu. Yah! that way he will not find time to study and then I will come first in the class! yahoo! then I will get a prize in the school day celebration... :( till now I have only participated in school day in the group songs.. so totally not cool ... Then when the principal would call me on to stage I can maybe kiss the school head girl! she is sooo pretty, and then even mom will not scold me for kissing her, coz I came first in the class! :D... then mom will send me to Pradeep Market to get that big box of crackers that I have always wanted to burst alllll by myself!! :D ....

umm wait... where am I? that's when I realized that I had walked almost 1.5 kilometers and had left Pradeep Market almost 1.3 kms behind! I was very sad that I was back to square one and will not get to kiss the head girl, that I thought I almost had.. sigh...



Standard 10th. I was sent to my room to study Geography.(yawnnnn...) . anyways I open the book and begin to read.. I was looking at the map of India, and suddenly I looked at Bihar... Its structure looked like a side profile of a woman, with a pretty stylish boy cut hair style. umm something like that of my principal who was to give me the prize when I was to come first in my class... I imagined this face turning towards me and that it was the most pretty face I would have ever seen... what I saw is still etched in my head very clearly, but the trouble began after that. All I could remember from that learning session was that face. The next day in the Geography class, my lecturer walks in. Although I am very sure I am straight, and especially my lecturer was not even in my wildest imagination, someone I could fancy, but as soon as he walked in, that pretty face replaced his umm rather, umm not-so-pretty-masculine-with-moustache face... I don't remember anything from that class... all through that class all I did was doing a lot of rather interesting things with that face .. all around some park...


Its very dark in the night in a jungle, and there are dark clouds all over the sky. A storm is impending, the tress are all dry and most of them dead. An old black crow is squeaking somewhere near. From somewhere, an innocent young girl draped in a tattered shawl is slowly, aimlessly walking through this forest. She has very recently been hurt in love. She is walking and wandering... The sky begins to thunder and lightning strikes into the forest dangerously close to her... but she doesn't notice... A creepy shadow is following her closely. But she doesn't notice.. she is just walking and wandering. Lost in her own thoughts...

This is picture I got in my head when I listened to the song 'Dil cheez hai kya jaana' by Bally Sagoo. Do this. Click on the link below and listen to this song, with ur eyes closed...

Link Click here!!

Now you would agree with me on either that my imagination is right, or that I have that above mentioned disorder that i don't wanna type again...

Hence Proved :D (Yahoo! Thankachhan Sir! R u listening :D ?)


psst: okay I suck at creating a horror movie scene, but in my head, it sure looks creepy :D