A few bad apples spoil the bunch

I had an irritating incident with one of our own call centers who started giving call to my cell phone some 2 months ago. The telemarketing offer was for Indian channel subscription which I had refused bluntly, in the first call I got as it required 12 month contract and a down payment. I clearly told I won’t be here for long so it’s not possible for me. It was not the usual blunt “no, I don’t want to hear anything more” which you get used to because of many stupid things being sold by telemarketing. I was sort of looking for getting a subscription and so at least I listened, asked a few questions and had to say a no. Also since this was from a renowned US channel provider I was not too worried either. Now if the call center person senses the slightest inclination, you’re bombarded with all the marketing tricks in his/her sleeve. So I got another call next week and then the week after with the things getting more irritating with talks like “Arre apni wife ki hi sochiye woh to bore ho jaati hongi”, I said I don’t have a wife, “Accha aapki girlfriend ke liye hi le lijiye”. I was ready to stretch my hand and take scale blows for not having girlfriend than listening to this crap. And these quoted sentences were exactly like that and in Hindi. I could guess the lady there was Indian from the accent and she finally broke it anyhow. Finally after few calls she said “I shall confirm with my manager” and came back that I could have it my way.Now the story went worse from there when I saw that my account was deducted for an amount no where in the calculation told to me. In fact it was 10 times the monthly payment. I called up angrily and amidst lots of sorry, apologies, “I actually did not know that there was such a clause”, “Aapko ye paise 6^th month ke end pe mil jayenge” and what not, what I finally could get is that “We are outsourced to get customers but we cannot handle
customer complaints and you’ve to call up the channel provider directly”. This call center was given a target to sell hook or by crook. My experience with the direct call center of the channel was pretty smooth. They confirmed that there was no way someone could waive off the contract and hence the amount was deducted and they said if you’re not ok we would refund you the money and apologized for whatever happened. I was so mad that I left a complaint too and
they apologetically accepted that it was a third party seller.

This incident made me think of what kind of image we are developing where India’s
one of the largest market lies. A call center executive, who doesn’t even know the facts of the thing they are selling, is sure harm to their company more than the harm done to the customer. If it was in US the company CEO would be seeing shutdown in the few years of its inception. Anger directed at call centers which are mismanaged is already raging and these kinds of incidents leave people even more skeptical if their call is being handled by India.
Look at this article which lists down what kinds of frauds have tarnished the image of the Indian BPO. I think the problem lies with the new small players taking the plunge lured by the pie they could cut out of this boom. These don't even have proper means to hire good talent and that is if at all any sane head thinks of applying there. Employee retention is becoming a problem for the biggest back office players and so these small companies must be grappling with shorter training times and then losing those trained to these biggies. All this must be ending up in a fresher out of a college in Delhi time passing in a nukkad ka call centre for 2 months to make quick bucks to spend it all in Ruby Tuesday when he shifts to the big brother.

Now all this can be a one off incident and does not invite any analysis and Who knows the second call I made would have been from a very well accent trained Indian who handled my call well. Well that's what I am saying, a few small companies might spoil the whole impression. I think there is a need for consolidation in this sector to the extent that a few big companies handle it in a much better way. Maturing at this youth/middle age might go a long way in keeping the growth this sector is witnessing.

The customary car photo

One thing everyone from India will have on his/her orkut profile is the famous car photographs. Rented cars, bought cars or any damn car. Whatever it might be but its a similar feeling (if not the same) that you used to get when you bought your first car in India. Such an occasion would happen in a middle class Indian family when the kids are almost out of the college or the daughter is married or time when the money does not have any specific aim. Here in US you get well earlier than you would have thought. Mostly because the first time you come to US where you have to have a car (Except for a few cities that I have not seen). When god gave legs to the rest of the world, he gave cars to the US citizens. I could have posted the links to a few samples but due to sheer volume and anonymity, I'd leave it at that.
Well since I am talking of cars, another thing that annoys me is that here bike is a far better difficult to obtain and ride as compared to car. Some times I even feel like asking my bike from India and ride it to office. One: It is very time effective as you can sneak in between lanes. Two: Its stylish, perhaps like what the car is in India. Three: I guess my unicorn would be far more fuel efficient than any of the bikes these people run here. Well the only question left is how would it do at 120 kmph everyday.

Most guilty period

The most guilty period of the week is Sunday evening. You get up from sleeping 3 hours in the afternoon and then count what all you had planned for the weekend and what all you've ended up doing. Its a gone chance, the next hectic week is staring at you. What all you'd have to do extra to cover up for things that related to office, what all things on personal front shall have to wait one more weekend. Then you get up, wash your face and call a friend who'd be doing the same thing. Things do improve a bit after that, collective guilt is consoling.

One thing I have a good feeling about during this weekend is watching Omkara. Its a movie worth watching. People who would be able to relate to western UP (I belong to East UP but have done college in West) will enjoy the language more. I haven't read Othello, but to those who are going to see the movie, let me warn you its a tragic story, someone told me the most tragic play of Shakespeare.

After watching the songs I've become like one of the truck drivers of UP who listen to songs like 'beedi jalaile' and 'Namak isk ka'. These songs are good.

Identity crisis

Well I don't know whether I've been made out of a all so common Indian mould or that I change shapes to look similar to people. Nothing that I've been able to give scientific explanation to (Engineers are supposed to give scientific explanation only)

The recurrence of it makes me laugh and pained at time (you'll come to know later when) but its consoling to know that I am not the only party to be faced with this situation. There are always two party involved in the confusion right.

Also it does not start from the near past, this is since the days of my childhood. My younger bro who's just about 2 years younger to me started looking very similar to me by the time I was 10 and since then hardly things changed. We used to wear the same set of clothes (tons of savings for parents). Built, face cut, voice is distinctly different for me but must be same for others as its not one who got confused. One of the incident was when I went to my brother's parent teacher meetings with mom and met his English teacher. Here is how it went:

Mom: What's the report on Manaswi, does he study, does he (all mom concerns)
Teacher (Staring with 'bastard I kill you' looks towards me): When do you study English.
And I was : Abe!! I study English, don't study English or study Hebrew, who are you to ask me. I am not at my school and you have no damn right to ask this question. Obviously this was in my brain only and somehow me and my English teachers (English language too) don't go very well. Having been through it many times I said perhaps you're getting confused with my brother, me and mom both got the sentiment she was conveying.

One time a friend of mine who I met in one of the crowded coachings I used to go turned up at my home when I was not there. He met my brother and without introduction started over on pehchaana!!! And I can imagine how fun it would have been. He said yaar coaching main mile the, arre Gaurav!!!!!! and still he would have been turned down. Finally my bro had to suggest if he was looking for me :).

There are numerous such incidents, surprisingly I haven't found any twins nor any similar looking people for me to be confused thus. Ok now the next mishtake used to happen with Anshul and me. Anshul and I joined Jaipuria in 1993. Don't know how we looked similar (Main kahan itna smart aur woh kahan :)) but still people used to get confused. Once I had asked an English teacher for my workbook she had lost and so she said she'd give me a new one. So I was waiting for her to give it and had asked me to remind it. One fine day when I reminded her she turned back and said. Now you want a workbook? I don't have anymore. It was kind of rude, and remember me and English teachers never went well and so I did not bother to argue. Cursed these English blabbering teachers who never keep their word and left it. One fine day Anshul tells me about a workbook that was gifted to him by that teacher. Then it clicked, that she gave it to him thinking it was me. I know Anshul should not have taken it but he could not help resisting free stuff :).

At college things went worse, rather tragic. I gave an exam and was coming out of the examination hall. One of the last person to leave and when I was at the door almost a girl shouted "Apurva" and I stopped, looked back at the girl. Incidentally the girl was looking in slightly different angle and rushing that way(For a second I thought dhirri hai). What turned out as she shouted again that she was going for Anshul and shouting my name. Well even though angered by the wrong usage, I did not intervene in the private time of the two people to clarify who was who, guess Anshul would have done that. The scores were leveled recently when, the thing that prompts me to write this post, a girl wrote on my scrap book asking how are you "Anshul"? Interestingly you have photos there, loads of profile crap and still people can get confused. Using Aps instead of Apurva should not confuse I felt.

I just hope that these lessons are made very clear to my future wife if any. I guess keeping a password between us should not hurt.

Song on top of my list

There are always some songs which get on top of my head first and those that I have to get somehow and listen. So the latest song which I accidentally heard and then had to find out and download was Euphoria's "Bhoola Tumhe".

The spies around me will somehow find lots of reasons to point out that I was contemplating on something to be appreciating this song but seriously this song deserves a hearing and that too repeated a few times over. Lyrics are simple and perhaps the whole songs is just 6 lines but the music is awesome. One of the usual experiments of what Euphoria calls as Hind Rock.

Will just leave you with the lyrics as pointers to where to download from would be illegal :). Morover I know, those that want it, can get it anyhow.

"Bhoola Sab"

Na na na...(4)
Bhula sab, Bhula tumhe..

Sach tha ya koi sapna, bhool gaya,
Neend main keh ke apna, bhool gaya,

Yaad hai sab haan, jo bhi hua na
Hua hai jo, sab kuch main woh, bhool gaya,

Ab nahin tere geet, ab nahin tu mera meet,
Bhula sab, bhula jahan, bhula tumhe

Ab nahin ??? raat, ab na hogi taaro se baat,
Bhula sab, bhula jahan, bhula tumhe

Sham ka karke waada, bhool gaya,
Yaad hai kuch kuch zyada, bhool gaya,

Aaine main jo, dekha tha tujhko
Maine kaha, ye bhi main haan, bhool gaya,

Ab nahin tera zeher, ab nahin mujhe koi darr
Bhula sab, bhoola jahan, bhoola tumhe

Ab nahin ??? raat,Ab na hogi woh pyari baat,
Bhula sab, bhoola jahan, bhoola tumhe

Jo tere saath guzaare the, woh lamhe sach much pyare the,
Lekin woh itne saare the, yaad rakhna bolo aakhir unme kis kis ko
Bhulana tha aasan, bhula unhe
Bhula sab, bhoola jahan, bhoola tumhe
Bhula dhun, Bhule geet

Ab nahin tere geet, ab nahin tu mera meet,
Bhula sab, bhoola jahan, bhoola tumhe

Ab nahin tera zeher, ab nahin mujhe koi dar
Bhula sab, bhoola jahan, bhoola tumhe

Lyrics seem incomplete (Some question marks left) but this is what I could get off the net. I think hardly anyone has noticed this song. We'll have to wait till they are released on the official website of Euphoria. As some site I was looking also pointed out, they even have their songs mp3 for download on their own site which lets you download without bugging registrations. I like the free spirit.


Technorati Tags: Euphoria, Music

Go Metro?

The hot sun, staring at me, wakes me up as if its trying to lift my eyelids up and poke a finger in my eyes. There is hot dust around me and I am not on my bed, I am at the changeover bus stop called peck road, waiting for my next connecting bus to office. Worst of all I am as sleepy as one is when he just puts the tooth brush in his mouth in the morning. The bus stop!! Is just one pole which reads the bus number (interestingly not even the stop name). Its difficult to feel this harsh on the morning Sun unless one sees it for himself, how hot or pinching is morning 7:30 Sun in dry California. The 35 mins in the first bus used to be so sleepy that it was almost as if being thrown out of the bus while you were sleeping.

I used to see this advertisement daily in the bus which said, "Free yourself, go metro". Well! Irony has never been fun at such times but some times I used to analyze what freedom one would get if he chose metro. Here's what I could get:

First of all metro wasn't a choice, I had to choose it because that was the only means to my office. I think in my most previous sojourns also I never made a choice for public transport. Public transport generally is not a choice by conventional wisdom, choosing a luxurious transport is rather. Well for here, its a little opposite. I researched the LA area metro pamphlets, website, maps and understood the value of the shortest path algorithm finally. Not that it could have solved any problem if I had studied it properly, only thing is that considering all the options in this world from my home to office there was only one way by changing a bus in between, both run by different companies, both honoring different monthly passes and most helpfully, different offical times and late timings. So very often my ~1 hour travel time used to translate into ~1 hour 40 mins: courtesy late/missing buses. Also the frequency of the office hours buses is 30 mins (and very intelligently these buses keep to their 30 mins frequency even when there would be no one using them whole day).

So to the traveler, who has become wise and become free I would suggest to get a backpack and keep the following stuff at all times of travel: Food (muffins/fruits), an umbrella for these 40 mins wait in the sun, something to read if you can do that in the sun and headphones to avoid distraction from other free spooky travelers.

So wisdom says, gas prices have gone up, freeways are choked etc and one should use metro only. I would say please go ahead and tell me when you see one wise or free man traveling with you. As for me it was none less than a freedom struggle to free myself from this metro!! For me the campaign always used to read "Go metro? Free yourself (rather)"

Zidane vs Materazzi

It must have been a difficult decision to ruin one's career ending moment. Tolerate or get a red card. He has now even gone and apologized to the children of France who might feel ashamed of him. Its better to be right than to be courteous and safe. This video might have been made by zidane lovers and in football it might also not be that tough to show any player a villian considering the physical game it becomes at times. But even without that one could judge that materazzi must have asked for it and got what he deserved. My only message to Zidane: Arre khopche main le ke kharcha paani dena tha, faaltu main itna publicity liya.

Are Indians not unanimous?

As Americans are waking up to the fact that India too has terrorism problems I had a discussion with an inquisitive American on the recent Mumbai blasts. Well every meeting I went to today had people questioning me on how are Indians taking it. I guess if it was America, atleast a dozen Pakistani cities would have been bombed by the time they saw the morning. Well, I had to explain them, its India and we've been facing this kind of things since two decades if not more.

The discussion went on long with my Indian colleagues pouring in their own ideas. We kind of flooded them with loads of data each one had but what he had to say was that in his talks with many Indians what he figures out is that Indians have lots of conflicting ideas or thoughts about any thing. Leave that what data he gets to hear from all of us is mostly different.

On that I think he was not all that wrong. At the same time each channel in India gives different number of blasts, different death toll and we are kind of used to that as we know anyhow the figures are more grim and plus or minus one anyhow does not make any difference. Truth about this, what I understand, is that truly we Indians are first of all not at all politics people. We generally don't care about politics of the country, 50% don't even vote and as the latest example we see here is that most Mumbaikars would be leading a normal life without even forcing their government to apologize for the security lapse.

And while all these things happen, at one of the million chai shops in UP we would be discussing gossips about India/Pakistan/Kashmir/Bollywood and what not without even caring of its accuracy.

That's India

Tinatile??

Being an Indian with not many options for lunch, most of the lunches happen at burger joints like McDonald's or burger king. Don't get me wrong, I am not a vegetarian but somehow my office is in a peculiarly Chinese neighborhood where experimenting can be fatal. I have tried a couple of times things that I had never tried before. Last time I had lunch at such a Chinese/Vietnamese/Japanese joint, the soup bowl was similar to a living pond from which you could fish out living thing possible. It had clams, shrimps, fish, crabs and some of the things I hardly remember name of.

Coming back to Burger joints or similar fast food joints, they have a peculiar process defined even for asking question. That's gone so standard that some day some chimpanzees could be trained to take orders. Well its something not new to me but today's incident opened my eyes a little more. I was off to Burger King and ordered a menu number x with coke and medium fries (I tend to tell whatever they want to avoid time wastage). But the conversation doesn't stop here, she asks me

"tinatile" (she was a Chinese I guess),
I said "What!!"
"tinatile"
I again "What!!!!!!" (With all my ears focusing only on this one word in English)
"tinatile" (what the heck, C'mon if someone is not understanding a sentence their process should have a clause to re-phrase it with some different words but no!!)
I said "I just want this and nothing else."
Well that was the golden answer and then I understood what she was asking was "Anything Else?"

And the last part of the process I kind of guessed rather than making out the Chinese accent.
"For here or to go?".

By this process memorized for all the major joints I think people should be able to answer them in any part of the world. Ask the same questions in Mandarin and I'll shoot the answers now.

My problem would be solved but I just wonder how these people's reflexes in real life be. Guess if the boy friend asked her for a kiss, I bet the answer would be Medium or large? :)

Bombay's Boom

A recent issue of Time which I happened to see on the stalls and picked up had this cover story on India Inc. and Bombay's Boom. Little did I know that Bombay's Boom would give a sad connotation. Anyone who has to prove anything tries to raise a havoc on the city which takes it in its stride over and over again. Its the people who keep rising back to normal over and over again but I hardly see a difference created by the people who should be responsible for safety, comfort and development of the Mumbaikars.

I agree we in India don't have the most complying or disciplined citizens of the world, but still people can do things to a limit. They can unite in times of calamity or they can stay calm without making much panic but what do the authorities do? Just do repair work when something rips off Mumbai? I think they need to get their act together.

The Time issue was both amusing and surprising. Amusing because most of it was "What is India?" kind of
article. These people are still trying to discover India and the
shockingly surprising things were the facts mentioned. There was a lot
of focus on Mumbai. Some of the facts like the number of people who die
annually in local trains runs into several hundreds. Its shocking even
to an Indian to know these figures. Here's what the article says:

As a result, passenger groups say, an astonishing 3,500 travelers die every year on the tracks, hundreds simply falling from the trains.

Imagine this happening in any developed country. They would get on a war alert and in India it is something many would not even know.

Well considering we know so much that goes wrong in Mumbai, why do the authorities sleep is something I can't digest. If you know the railway system can't support so many people think of some alternatives. At the least advertise things like what hours should be avoided so that the local trains don't get over crowded, perhaps enforce rules for safety, arrange more trains, have more technology help etc. etc.. I don't know what not but I doubt there is any serious thinking process going on this.

Well!! Finally I hope those in Bombay are able to come over all this yet another time while the government would sleep a few years over it's post analysis.

Google can turn into punjab kesri

Sometime back I had registered for customized news and from then onwards google kept throwing punjab kesri type news of Rakhi Sawant being kissed by Mika. Ok I agree its my fault that I read that news the first time but once in a while a person will tumble over masala news and read it. And as you do that, google will track that news for you. So every time you open news that rakhi sawant update would be staring at your face tempting you to see if there has been any movement in that. Who knows some channel released the photo/video in an attempt to condemn it :). Along with that Google will start getting more crap now from Bollywood to fill your personal section too.

Leaving what google does aside, I am totally abreast with the rakhi sawant case now. If you ask me which side I am. Frankly I don't have very high opinion for both of them so the least I appreciate them, the better. They both could have been wrong, Rakhi could have been playing a publicity stunt or even mika would have been at fault of being indecent as he looks in most of his videos. Remember his first video "sawan main lag gayi aag"? I think Gulshan Grover was hired just to leave no confusion who was the villain and who should the heroine avoid. Strange thing about this episode to my senses: National Commission for Women got involved in it.

Corruption debate

In a recent discussion with my boss over corruption in India, we came up with some interesting points that I thought of jotting down here. I don't think these are something which has never been thought about but I don't see much talk about them either.

Its common to see the way things work here abroad and laugh about the inefficiencies that are there in India due to corruption. I think its right also, unless you see the difference, appreciate the positives and condemn the wrong, you are never starting on the way to make changes. There's no doubt that things in Indian government institutions that deal directly with the common public are the ones that are the hotbed of the corruption machinery. So broadly speaking what are the causes of it:

Less salaries in Indian public sector. It makes me wonder sometimes how Subir Raha must be getting than his counterpart CEOs. Might be one tenth or lesser. I don't mean he will go corrupt because of not being able to manage in a 20-30 Lakhs p.a. but consider when the same ratio translates to the babu types jobs. I don't know what they get but from what I constantly hear, their salaries are sub 5000 for many. I wont comment its less or more because anyhow there's no limit on more anywhere. But in comparison to what he is offered in bribes, the things that he deals in generally translate into more than 10x times his salary. Which is a great motivator to take the plunge. There would be a great mass who wont take the effort of killing his conscience if his basic needs are satisfied and he gets the respect in the society but at 5K types salary that's not what one can expect. So these rock bottom salaries are one big motivator for the corrupt. Consider Indians pay 21,068 crores as bribes per year anyhow that amount of money is flowing as black money. I think there are many people who feel that instead of charging me 50Rs for a driving license better charge me 500Rs and save me the pain of paying 6 babus 50 rs each and having lesser respect for my own country.

But if you think over the above argument, a person who reaches higher posts and starts earning something which other people in industry get then also he does not stop being corrupt. The reason being, its like once corrupt, always corrupt. Its like yaar ek baar aur sahi, phir nahin karoonga. So once you are into this cycle, there's no ending, how much ever you earn or store or stash.

Society is one more reason. We as Indians keep forming groups and generally recognize ourselves as part of a group only. There are no rights and wrong, we are quite comfortable in convincing ourselves about the aims of the group and follow them as gospel truth. consider a fresher joining a department of xyz revenue collection and distribution. That fresher first identifies himself with the seniors who eat truck loads of notes, then their lesser ones who service them and get some suitcases for their families and it would be in such good harmony that he would also fall in love of the concept and start doing the same stuff. We hardly have rebels, individuals who are ready to challenge the established. We just flow with the things. So my hypothesis is that India in the next generation is going to be a rage without any stopping. You'll see an honest, un-corrupt country. That's because I see a lot many un-corrupt, satisfied people than I used to see in the generation of my uncles, father's friends etc etc who I know are working in sarkari company and making black money and yet being good individuals in their personal lives. The day this percentage decreases and percentage of people who are honest goes high, we'll have followers who will do the same. So I guess its going to be an exponential growth in it.

So the matter is about conversion. I think India should reduce the number of converts by taking appropriate measures. A good salary to match other industry standards is one first step. In countries that I visit these public services either get more or equally paid than other similar professions. People do live in the same society and then feel part of it. They have incentive to be non-corrupt. Awareness can be improved first by stressing more about these issues in School, increase penalty of being corrupt and setting examples of honest people. I think these are little abstract but I think its happening slowly. I admire the way the new industries in India have taken these things very seriously and have their own excellence in executing these stuff.

India is currently placed at 88th rank among 159 nations according to a report by Transparency International. Consider India is the 4rth largest economy of the world (considering Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)) and the second fastest major economy of the world and if corruption does not fall then its difficult to imagine any further growth.

At the end of all my fundas I will leave with a very good report(Transparency International India) of Indian corruption.





Technorati Tags: Corruption, Economy

Winner of this weekend: Gangster

Well pardon me for yet another movie review. But I'll try not to break any suspense and hence just say that Gangster is a good movie to watch.

These kinds (new cast and not so advertised) movies get ignored. I also have an habit of not watching movies without any reviews. I can't say I had not heard a good review about gangster but still I avoid movies where I don't know any artist to atleast have some credibility to it somehow had been avoiding any Imran Hashmi movies. Just because he had become stereotyped for serial kisser and had been in a dozen such movies requiring cerebral usage of less than .01 %

Well Kangna, the heroine is simply gorgeous. Delicate looking and hmm.. ;). Songs are good, almost all and the movie is edited in a nice style and suspense is presented well. Those who have not watched, do that over other movies.

Technorati Tags: Gangster, Movies

Is movie se dimag fanaa ho jaye

Well I was not at all thinking of writing any reviews about Fanaa. Many have already written pages on it and it does not make sense to write a movie which is generally dubbed by people as not making up to the marks. Atleast that's what the image I could get from the reviews that I have read. But now that I have seen the movie, I was provoked to write a review to save millions who read this blog.

I had less expectations from the review but the movie disappointed after that also. The initial phase of shayari and the instant maggie 2 minutes falling in love is one of the most hilarious part of the movie. What could easily have been termed as roadside romeogiri is depicted as the best form of wooing. (Low level has gone to the level of hardware perhaps). A guide giving flying kisses to girls in the bus, girls appreciating it looked all like axe land story to me. I digest it all saying that my competency in love matters is nothing that I should be proud of and also that I am watching a movie

Well the movie progresses with such huge negligence of the public common sense that I lost track of what all was going wrong. Amir enters army after killing someone who is never traced by his wife also for 2 months and of course landing in army location where no one, yes no one knew you after the mission also must be easy. Farhaan beats the Indian army in Mithun da ishtyle after jumping from the helicopter and a whole battalion (mind you with a helicopter and motorized sledges) cannot get hold of a person on snowboard. Well I digest all that considering that mithun da did it some 20 years ago and so today's heros must be little advanced.

Well movie becomes a little sane after all this only with little irritating overuse of the dialogues like "Farhaan jitna aapse pyaar karta hai.." and "Har kaam akele nahin hota hai".

Overall then the movie tries not to disappoint more than it has already done till now. You start ignoring things like that what a girl would do when she sees her father's dead body. Run to get some help, panic or just wait casually for her husband to be back. Finding Farhaan's location from the radio is not possible but when Zuni does a radio her location is all known by itself. The intelligence people discuss as if they are sitting on some UP ki chai ki dukaan. Coz the confidence with which they discuss complex politics to extreme science puts any NASA Scientist to shame.

Coming to the point of Kajol and Aamir in the movie. Yes they look good and actually they never looked bad to me so not a selling point for me atleast. And as someone pointed out, they could have made a portfolio of both the artists and shown it as a slide show if that is the only point for which people should see Fanaa.

Songs are good and out of them "Dekho na" is awesome and it's video irresistible

Mallu detection squad

How do you recognize a desi abroad? There are no answers, you just do. There are ones who look same as you and those that would have looked firang in India are also and easy pick. For us all chinki's look the same, all americans might be indistinguishable but even the most blending of the Indians stand out.

My first experience with this kind of ability was not with any international exposure. It was during my days in Mysore when I had just moved in there. All southies spoke the same cryptic language which I could not understand. But I landed up with mallus as my room mates. Mallus have a peculiar detection mechanism which works without hearing the other person speak a word. I mean just by looks, most of my roomies would be able to locate another mallu. So in our house there were mallu hounds who at every bakery would find out that the bakery waalah was mallu, every taxi driver they meet they would be able to chaff out the mallus out of them. Even from a name they could classify a mallu.

But it took me no time to get into their squad. There were following simple rules (without offending any mallu who might have started folding his tund) :

If someone is wearing a white dhoti with a shirt, he has to be a mallu
If the name is a combination of Hindu and Christian. For e.g. Amit George.
If your name is any combination of George, Koshy, Urvin, Justin, Bobby. Nothing out of this syllabus.
If the person has curly hairs
If the person is totally nuts about girls in gym, or girls in white sarees. Wonder how many people will love to see women in whites, but mallus sure would die for it.
If he searches for a mallu mess in 50 km vicinity of his house and says its convinient to have the putt and egg curry and biriyani on weekend than to cook at home

Its been great fun with all my mallu friends who might themselves be currently puzzled how they smell a mallu coz they never came up with a formal approach.

And there are incentives for getting a mallu. Each one has such dearness towards each other that he can even give you your account number. I don't know how their practical experience is but for an outsider it sure seems that. So I think its all the more important to know whether the other person is mallu and ready to chat in his own language.

Am I right? Enda para?

Devil's Advocate

A lot has been said about reservation by all, but what even I as an un-informed common man was just hoping that the person behind that had some valid reasons. I mean I have no doubt that I am for the upliftment of the suppressed but I am seriously against any kind of reservation given on the basis of cast alone. In fact as many have cited out(1, 2) that reservation per se is a flawed policy, easily exploitable and hardly useful except to feed the vote banks of politicians. I wont elaborate on that but I want you people to read the following link on IBN Live about the Devil's Advocate-Arjun Singh ,which I wish I could have seen.

Does it convince you?


PS: Dabbu thanks for the mail.

The Da Vinci Watched

Just got to see the Da Vinci Code. Well there's been quite a hype around it in India. I think its quite a nice movie (Don't ask me if its better than the novel or not, as I don't think movies can come to close to the detail of the novel). The movie is good and a must watch according to me for those who have not read the novel and also for those who have.

Good acting by Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautau. A lot of French speaking English reminded me of the way those people speak English ( I have somehow developed a liking for that accent. Long to hear English that way. Its not the correct way to speak but sure it sounds good. Especially when you're not a pundit in English yourself.). The movie touches on every important part of the novel. Has nice graphic description of the history (perhaps they lifted this concept from RDB) where they go back to history in b/w and scenes of before Christ are shown in that b/w sketchy manner. All the turning points of the novel are kept that way intact and shown (Pardon me if I missed some intricacies as its been long since I read the novel and I am surely not known for my memory). Characters match the imagination.

One thing where the movie lacks is the details of the symbology which Dan Brown has done more justice in the novel. I need to hear one review from the person who sees it without reading the novel. Does it incite the same amount of interest in the subject of Symbology as the novel does?

And btw on the controversy, I guess one thing where the movie has tried to set its record right is the part of belief in Jesus as God. Robert Langdon does keep getting to the point back that this is all what people believe, the grail followers believe and this is a hoax which people believe in deeply. The message is little less forced as compared to the novel. So my guess is that there is no need for such debate about it hurting the Christian belief. It should be released peacefully in India.

Its different

This is exactly the feeling I am getting on entering into US. Its surely different to go out of India into any country which is developed and advanced in terms of social status but coming to US is even more different than that. Having seen Europe, I can't help but noticing differences between the two and my own homeland of course.

US is big for sure. I haven't had a chance to see anything beyond where I landed and within 30 miles (yes miles is what I have to adjust to) of it but one thing that's most obvious is that they're grand on everything they have.

A supermarket will be twice the size it requires to be. Parking lots are like open fields. This is one thing you wont find so much in Europe. People are obsessed with cars etc but somehow I have never seen such big parking lots there. At most restaurants, the size of the restaurant would be one twentieth of the parking lot around it. Give one parking lot to 100 farmers in India and they would convert each one of them to lush green paddy fields, have 200 children and be happy.

Vastness gives to me a great feeling of wastage. You can blame me as back in India you wont waste a single piece of land except of course where it matters for the business, clients. Beautification is one thing which is secondary to utility.

When you come to roads, it beats the sense out of your brain. If one of the expressway is evacuated and given to people of Modinagar then they can have the whole city settled without even any 'choplas' (that in modinagria terms is a crossing) in between. I mean you wont have to go to other crossing on the freeway before the whole city shall be happily finished. Also when someone tells you this 6 lane freeway crawls at 15 mph speed you feel like laughing. But wastness is what you have to get your mind.

No difference in currency notes. 1 $ goes as big as a 100$ bill. Its also grown. They did not even spare numbers, our humble little centigrade scale is now bigger in Fahrenheits, so 30 degrees Celsius become 85 Fahrenheits (don't remember the formulae, just guessing from the feel factor). One thing is miles which is shorter but believe me its psychologically bigger. You would be ready to walk 2 kms but never 2 miles.

Your country itself has 3 time zones. I never faced that when calling anyone in Europe/India. Atleast the country people are in the same time zones. You have a lot of Indian friends but its like one is in Kanyakumari and another in Kashmir.

So this grandoise is giving me the initial jerk of entering into the US of A. So till I settle properly things will keep on amazing me. Not in the sense of awe which you might get into any developed country as that has gone after my first travel but more in the sense of differences between the cultures of the East, Europe and the West. There's a lot that does meet the eye in terms of people and places which I'll sure pen down at a later time, coz people is what I am still figuring out myself. Till then its just the tomato ketchup feeling which I cannot explain... It's Different

Desh ki khushbu

Every movie that talked about NRI must be having this dialogue : "Apne desh ki mitti ki khusboo kuch aur hi hai". I cannot agree more with that and that too speaking non emotionally. There's a different smell which I can categorise as cold-western smell. You get this distinct foreign smell as soon as you land and the worse part from my prev experience is that this does not go. I mean you get used to it but still its distinctness that keeps reminding you of desh ki mitti.

Doston ki yaad, onsite snobbishness of people who were once Indians make you long for your own country emotionally on the other hand. Will write more about this when I have more time.

Mukhtasar=short/consise

A song that I had been searching for long. Deep meanings and good vocals.

Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan

Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar

Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Kar gaya dil ka woh soona nagar
Koyi rasta na koyi dagar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan

Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan

Neele aasmaan pe badal chhaa rahein hain
Panchi apne ghar ko wapas jaa rahein hain
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan
Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar

Door parbaton pe phool khil rahein hain
Pyaar karne wale saath chal rahein hain
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan

Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idher
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Kar gaya dil ka woh soona nagar
Koyi rasta na koyi dagar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan

Kahani mohabbat ki hai mukhtsar
Gaya dil se phir woh na aaya idhar
Kabhi koyi tha meri raahon ka ek humsafar
Use dhoondoon kahan, use paoon kahan
Aaj main hoon yahan woh kahan

Listen here.

Sunne layak kahaniyan aakhir mukhtasar si hi hoti hain.

Technorati Tags: Songs, music

Confused and can't name the spark

Maya, or the unreal world is what makes our lives beautiful in its whole journey. Does the real actually matter? What's it about getting to know the reality? The real world!! Its about getting older and understanding the truth than be in illusions of doing the right thing. But what I am writing as the gospel truth might be my illusion. All part of maturing.

One end is the material world with all its beauties, statuses, power etc. On the other end is pure realisation that what you earn in life is respect, love and friendship. One of the things I recall is what I read in the 7 habits book was that to imagine urself at your own funeral and imagine what everyone speaks for you. What would you like to hear from others about yourself that inspires you to live the life that you are living. So what should value most?

I think for most part of our lives Maya guides us into doing things that lead us good into the material world. It is this element of Maya that makes life what it is. Its present in small/big share in everyone's life. I think its part of the universe without which the world would have been a very boring place to be in.

But at the end of it what should be called maturity? Does it matter that you get more respect or more money? Does it matter that you wear more costly or that you are more comfortable? Does it matter that you care for the other person's feeling or that you are doing a bookish right? Feeling is more important or saying? Persevering is more important or accomplishing?

I think I am just a novice, will take some time for me to figure out.

What I wont do

Recently I happened to read an interview by Rahsmi Bansal in which she answered that one should make his or her mind clear about his/her career and atleast decide "What I will not do". To me this is such a big and dangerous question that I actually stopped thinking about it.

There are so many things that I can list down that I had happily told that "ye to nahin hi karoonga" and after a few whips from luck I find myself doing it. I started noticing this after a person I can call wise told me once, "never say, I would not do x thing" because then the whole world conspires to make you do it (plagiarism :)). I'm sure this should be happening with others too, but I'm also sure that with lesser surety than mine.

Rather I have had better luck with "I can try to do it". I mean when I am quite unsure of my success, I guess the effort is more than required and it has got me some excellent results. Well excellent is not that great but atleast say 3 out of 10 times it works and that too is excellent considering if I say "I wont do it" and forget about it, I have had to do it with almost cent percent surety.

The entropy of the world ensures that your plans shake and you slip into the same pit that you wanted to avoid, in short you get that "dreamers bad luck". So I shall try not to say "I wont do this thing" but who knows I might :)

Alternate levels of Manager and Techie: Spark 2

Just thinking of the reply to this topic earlier. I figured out one more benefit.

A techie always gets promoted to be a manager. He has to get back to his toes, start listing down all that he hated in his manager and get to working what a techie under him would need to work efficiently. He can be good at nurturing a person who's going to do a techie work. What he will have to struggle is to get a manager's hat. This is one part he shall have to learn, schedule, assign, manage are some things a first timer into a management position would get to know and have to adjust with. And many would agree who better than the developer himself to estimate and assign.

Similarly a manager gets promoted to a technical role. His strings are pulled and he has to now get back to the basics. Learn the overall technique of the things being produced and yes from a higher level than he used to do it two levels below. Get to understand similar technologies, spark some innovation and collect data to explore to improve efficiencies of the techies working a two level below him. And overall be responsible for a sound product that all managers under him are going to manage.

Nothing serious yet that I can pen down a new theory of management but still jotting down my thoughts.

Sad as it is

Its tragic that Pramod Mahajan had an untimely death. Its a loss. His good long career had lot of laurels and brickbats but what made him popular was his simplicity and eloquence in the matters he believed. Somehow people recognised him as a person who keeps things on a lighter note and carries his heart on his sleeve. I have no more to say than a lot of other media sites/blogs(1, 2) would be saying about the goods that he did.

May he rest in peace.

Parents visit

Parents are here and its a nice break from bachelorhood :). Its a good break from our raju chacha too. Ghar ka khana, nothing can beat it.

Alternate levels of Manager and Techie

Don't know how the thought struck. Another spark in an empty brain, perhaps effect of an over dose of Dilbert's blog and his office comments. How would it be if we had alternate levels of Management and Technical expertise. Let me explain what the spark is.

What happens or un-intentionally happens is that as you keep going up the organisation ladder, you tend to loose touch of the ground realities, the nitti-gritti of the work. And this phenomenon does not end. Your manager is a manager, his manager is a bigger manager, his manager's manager is a bigger manager and so on. So in the end you reach the level where someone is just sitting and counting dollars. Darvin's theory of disuse takes its toll and the most disconnected from the base hardly understands what's been done.

Now for the discussion I call the
Techie who understands the technical details of the work (drawing from s/w industry, the coding, design, specification, execution)
Manager who understands the management of work (SOW, Schedules, Functional Spec).. in decreasing order of course.

Boss and subordinate have their usual meaning.

Now how about having a hierarchy where its mandatory that every techie will have a Manager Boss. Every Manager would have a Techie boss. Boss looks after one aspect of project and the techie the other part so no contention or duplication of work. Techie never expects the boss to understand the nitti gritty but has to report on what really matters to the 'Manager'. He in turn gets this data but has a techie boss on top who anyhow if was looking for the same things the manger was doing, would have been wasting time. He would be looking at the larger picture of managing many such managers technically. This would keep the managers subordinates on their toes and keep each one technically challenged.

Just a thought as I feel layers and layers of management just adds as an overhead. I think same would be if there were layers and layers of technical people. So an alternate layer shall have better interaction and get a better mix in people.

Tadeyandamol: Trek of my life

Suppi: keeda hai. ABE KEEDA HAI!!!

Suppi: Abe mera tent unglamorous lag raha hai. Theek se bandho

Suppi: Saala macro photo leta rehta hai, maaro saale ko
*the macro here is Kandya's. simply great.


Kandya: This is my style. Yaa this is my style.
pata bhi nahin tha ke sar par 2 topi lagi hain.

Aps: Anshul ke bag main saare chips hain aur kuch nahin
(Sorry buddy, but I can play jokes on you right. Its official now, you did carry a tent :))

Kapil: Tum logo ki body buddhi ho gayi hai. Meri body dekho, kitni fit hai

Aps: Aakade, aag ko udhar shift kar do.
:).. this is kannada guys.

Kapil: Tu pyar hai kisi aur ka.. tujhe chahta koi aur hai
(well the joke was on me)

Ranga: There are cheetas on the hill

Ranga: Who will be giving duty outside the camps? I can give till 2 am.
(no this did not happen)

Ranga: Lets hit the peak in 20 mins, be back in 20 mins. Guys you can have 40 mins to sleep

Ranga: My treads are worn out, have to come on all four
(and yes he came)

Kapil: Abe aaram kar lete hain, tum log thak gaye hoge

Kaps : Abe yahin se dekh lete hain yaar, upar se bhi same scene dikhega

Kandya: Maine life main ye pig pehli baar dekha be.
Kapil: Haan main ye waala pig life main pehli hi baar dekha hai.

Kapil: Abe anshul tum waste karte ho. Shatru tum bhi waste karte ho

These lines are the essence of the trip we had to Tadeyandamol, highest peak in Western Ghats. It was expected that as there were some enthusiastic budding bloggers, all/atleast three might come up with their version of the travelogue.

I still hope someone actually comes up with it. It was the first time that I had been on a trek where I carried my own tents and in a group where no one except one or two had camped ever. I had camped in my childhood in well made army camps with everything handled by school teachers who took us there (more of a resort). Since Tadeyandamol was raw, untrammelled, un-planned to some extent, the kind of uncertainities/excitement/exaustion/exhileration we felt is not easy to put down.
Tadeyandamol is conquered. That red cap is the new highest point on the peak.

*In case I have missed any good dialogue then do add

How much do you write?

Write as in when you use the pen or pencil to write on a paper. If I was to measure, I think I would be writing at best half a page in a month here and there for some little things.

That kind of shocks me as it did to me yesterday when the ICICI bank manager asked me to write a letter to the bank manager for my work. I was happily taking the instruction and returning thinking I'd be emailing it or shall be printing it and getting the copy next time I visit the bank. The manager helpfully suggested "Sir you can just jot down the application by hand, it should be sufficient".

Writing an English formal letter in front of an ICICI manager. I am sure we never do that so often at office, email etiquettes is one thing, writing a formal letter is another. I mean its not that one cannot write it but there are always small small (one mark, half mark kind) mistakes that one cannot avoid. On top of that my handwriting was never something I could be proud of (I used to be a very happy man during ragging days though, no notes writing for the seniors) and after these years of abstaining from writing, it has developed into something of a scribble.

We don't write as things work without it. We've started typing so much that for noting phone numbers also we use notepad. Nothing bad as things ought to get more efficient. Write once copy many times but there is something charming about the good old way of writing that one does not get in typing. I think a tablet PC might bring in the benefits of both the worlds but I am yet to even see one working and its efficiency. Till then think about it. How many of you really write and how much?

Sagar kinare

I was kind of intrigued when I came here to Bangalore to see so many idli-vada restaurants. There are of course many things to observe when a person from the 'bhaiya' part of India travels down south. Interestingly this is one thing you might not get to see if you are a traveler.

These restaurants known as Shanti Sagar, Sukh Sagar, x sagar, y sagar have a beautiful business model. Here are a few points that I could observe about them and the reverse of the adage strikes me : "If the time has come, the idea has to"

Standard menu:
These all sagars have a standard menu of around 10-20 items. You get idli, dosa vada, chow-chow* bath** etc etc. And if I had enough memory to remember my phone number I could have written down all the 10 of them. Now this must be helping in having standard equipment, learn how to set up a sagar and get the equipment to make all these items, that's all. Also the know how of making these 10 dishes with best efficiency is by now mastered to the extent that idli is almost as good as mass produced at these sagars.

Money Honey:
Its damn cheap. Idli plate for 6 rs. Yes. To a northi this is a culture shock if not financial. People in Noida line up outside Sagar Ratna (Again sagar) and are ready to pay 25 rs for a plate of idli which I can bet is half as good as those you get here. So if you used to have the same stuff at home after a lot of effort, why not just shell out 6 or 10 rs a day and get away with all the hassles. In a way these sagars have created a market for themselves.

Efficiency and low running costs:
With ages of making the same stuff the efficiency and the cost per item must be dead sea low. I was observing one person making dosas and he could make 8 dosas on a same plate at a same time. I remember how much effort used to go in making idly for my mother, ferment a day earlier (and I don't know the rest of it) etc. Here its like a cycle in which everything is so ready that it hardly takes any time/money for them to churn out hot steaming dosas for a dosen people in 5 mins.

Mass popularity & flooding:
How many breakfast joints do you find there up north. I have traveled most of UP and Delhi but you hardly find people having at these kinds of fast food breakfast. If at all we have we have the faster food category of "bund-makkhan", juice, peti*** kinds of joints. The limit is aalu paratha joints and those too are hard to find and never thronged in such numbers on any day. If you have to see the crowd, its only during dinner and lunches. So the point I was making was that, there is a huge market here down south of people who can eat fast on the way to their office. Also there is a sagar in every corner. Its like every society should have a milk vendor and so a sagar too.

If this blog was read like Dilbert's blog then I would have definitely run a poll on whether you prefer eating at a sagar and how frequently in the same fashion Scott Adams does quite often. In my case I guess I can even call those who are going to read the post and collate info. However besides job/boss/'shadi kab karoge' we hardly discuss anything so you can also leave your opinion here itself mentioning [yes/no] and [2 days/week]


* Initially I used to even think its a Chinese dish until I discovered its half part upma and half part kesri bath.
** Bath is one thing which used to make me feel that they are going to give you enough so that you could drown yourself in it. Later I discovered that all amits became amith and sita's became sithas. All in good humor, this used to be a common teasing point for all my south Indian friends here.
*** This is the way our juice corner waala on modinagar road used to call. I mean its western UP lingo. As if you are asking one lakh rupees and that too hot and "sos ger ke" (to an uninitiated it might look after spilling the sauce somewhere)

RSS comes to you

Just writing this post on a techie high. Those of you who are already conversant with Feeds/Atom/RSS (not the BJP one) please don't read any further and save me embarrassment. Just like when you are telling a joke and you ask the people who guess it to shut their mouths. You can also count me technically challenged and of course ignorant if I you think I should not be getting a eureka feeling on using feeds.

So this idea came from my friend in chennai who wanted a method so that he could see if a new post has arrived on my blog. You read mine and I read yours (Aur kya blogs become famous like this only). Of course there are other ways to popularize your blogs too. Go put crap against any sane argument and you'd attract venom from all and sundry and then accidentally many will stick on to your posts. Well I am digressing from this tech topic. So I had heard about atom/RSS but never had the time to change my happy ways of surfing the net. Every damn site said it provided RSS feeds too in an advertising way and I never cared. Just out of curiosity had clicked on anshul's blog and found it broken and so did not do much about it.

So on friend's request just tried to read about feeds link from google news page. Then looked around on the firefox extensions and got this cool extension to it - Wizz RSS. I also tried Sage, but its too minimalistic or too techie for me to discover its all features. Shall tell its good points later. Now both of them install in seconds and give you a nice sidebar (In case of Wizz avoid saying "import public lists", it would just clutter your category list). Now you can read endlessly on wizz help and see how to use it, but since I have tried it I would just give you 3 steps to get its best working for you. Rest I leave to you people.

Side bar has three sections Top- Category and channel list, Middle gives you the list of topics, and bottom gives you an abstract or preview of the article.

So
Step1: Right click on the category pane and say "Add Category" and it shall add folders. So for e.g. I say a category "blog"

Step 2: On your address bar type your truly's blog address (http://apurvashukla.blogspot.com) and when it loads you can click on the search button on the top of the category window. it looks something like this . It shall present with a pop up and detect the atom feed of the blogger. Just drag that and put it on the folder "blog" created in the category pane. Viola you just started a spark.

Step3: The most interesting step is to get updates automatically. For that right click on the "Brain Sparks" link and say add to watch list. Now go to the Wizz Toolbar and there in the drop down of "Watch List", choose "Configure watchlist". Options there are intuitive. And then you shall be having a popup once it finds any updates on the list of blogs you specified. Don't forget to check "Automatically start watchlist".

What I was telling about Sage was that its a simplistic reader and gives you a nice rendering of the feeds it gets in a web page form but I could not find the pop up feature in it. Maybe its there but after finding Wizz, I don't have the patience to dig deep into it. Interestingly feed rendering is very customizable and cool but I think they need to work on a full package a bit.

To be the same you were, I mean if you don't like the sidebar and the toolbar. I would say after you are done with all your customizations just hide the side bar (alt+s) and the toolbar from the "view" menu. In case a new post comes the pop is anyhow going to tell you.

Now why I feel this is a good thing is that I don't need to keep any of these sites open to see if they are updated. Just subscribe to their feeds. Wizz will keep polling these sites for me and tell me if there is any update. I think this way I would be able to read a dozen more blogs in the same time. Also and it comes just as the ease of mails.

And arre haan.. gmail also gives you RSS feeds, got to check out.. haven't tried that.

Ek simple sa blog bhi kick deta hai

This has been lying in my draft since a few days since I heard my friends case of blogging and getting caught for violating some of his company policies. One of my friend wrote some friendly article about someone and that person got a smoking fresh copy of blogging policy of the company and has properly implemented it with personal flavor of it. Now when some person catches you for violating a newly drafted blog policy, you can find the brilliance in execution. A guinea pig is used and learnings surely would go into the version 1.1 of that policy.

So some facts that I would like to mention for readers/bloggers' safety:

How do they come to know what you wrote?
Simple googling/your publicity of your blog or when they might want to get data to research on you.

How do they prove its you?
It can be any other Apurva Shukla in the world. But what I believe is that they can trace your IP from where you posted. In case you do not believe just see the site ticker at the bottom of my side bar, which I started using recently. It shows from where all your site has been accessed.

Is there a policy at all on blogging?
Every company might be having one in today's time. Since blogs are becoming slowly an active medium, companies wont mind spending some time into safeguarding their interests to come up with an internal law.

Whether there should be a company policy on blogging?
I feel yes and no.
Yes because there are a lot of things company specific which directly can get violated if you start talking on a public forum about that. That's plain easy understandable, something like an extension of the IP violation rule extension.

No for casual opinions about office life, person etc.
I think if there was any policy on restricted free speech then Scott Adams would be serving some 2000 years in prison for writing comical statements on office life. While I do agree that I would not go write something about my office on my blog, as blog is my personal space to talk of general issues but I am against any kind of policing on the blogging freedom. There are a hundred dozen blogs that want to become famous just by crying foul and attracting visitors to them but I feel there are more and more people who just want to hear plain facts (and little opinions based on them) rather than hearing false curses to anything. And if something is uttered about some person in particular without the context of company then it should be treated as out of context of office.

Interestingly today only Rashmi has blogged on the care that should be taken while blogging or expressing anything on the net. Read here.

My friend has recovered from the disaster but what's to be learnt from all this is that if you do not want such a jerk in your life due to a hobby or yours, please be careful about what you write.

Flowers!!

Things happen for a reason, flowers just point to the innocence that's still left.

Wallpaperish? Don't know myself but had this lying, finding no better audience than me. Had better use of them some time back but now I feel, I can post some of them on the blog.

Confused Kannada Patriotism

I recently happen to read our new avtar channel, CNN IBN's blogs. Surprisingly the one of our respected news reader gave his viewpoints on speaking in Kannada in Bangalore. I was reminded on a similar topic I had talked earlier, on the state of Hindi . Its sometimes sad that the language we speak is not recognised in the same place where we live.

But what is shocking to hear is that he goes on to say that

I was once tempted into asking a couple of slightly rude teenagers on a bike to speak in English

and

"The prevailing feeling here has been more elegantly paraphrased before, but let me interpret it rather plainly: 'just because Hindi is the national language, it doesn't give anyone the right to expect a South Indian or Bengali to speak Hindi in Bangalore."

Can't say much but will just pose a few questions? When someone asks you a way in any damn language and you understand that language, what would you do?
I atleast feel most in a rational bent of mind would try to help out without feeling that the people are rude or something.

Case 2, when you do not understand the language the question is being asked, plain simple you try to arrive at a common language between you two. So what if it has to be sign language.

What I feel is that this sort of reaction to save Kannada is totally misguided. I understand the desperation that the people who are from the north are bringing in Hindi and its kind of blending into local language. But I feel there are a lot of things about Kannada which has flown into the Hindi that we people speak here.

Exactly as I had said in the blog about Hindi, why does the reporter need to go to an English news channel? I think he could have very well gone for a Kannada news channel. But now that the quality people opt for English media the quality of Kannada media is bound to deteriorate.
In the end its not by forcing anyone to use a language makes it rich and widely acceptable, I feel its the interesting literature, movies, dramas etc in it that draw the masses to contribute to it.

Unknown Indian's Rantings: Introduce School Vouchers

Quite a convincing post link which I got from gaurav's post.

Challenge I feel , as validly pointed out, is the implementation of voucher scheme. As a pessimist, I can already dream those vouchers being exchanged for money. NDTV unveiling a racket in bihar where there is not school but vouchers directly reach the school without even touching hand of a single child.

Or even that hungry farmers from Andhra are trying a way out to get more vouchers and selling it to the schools that are just interested in more vouchers and no teaching.

But surely one innovative idea which if thought can work wonders. Read the whole post.

What Inspires?

Its been one of the common debates of us guys, what is that "inspires" us to do something better? A lot of things do come up when you talk on such matters. With the same company crowd, its generally company bashing. With the same industry crowd is generally industry bashing and with same country crowd its country bashing.

What comes to my mind as the single most important factor which inspires is - knowledge. Anywhere you see a steep climb of knowledge you get a kick to do something in that field. It is sans boundaries and hence its not about which field you have the knowledge but someone having loads of it surely inspires you. Obviously interest is a big factor in that. I mean the knowledge which is inspiring you, should be in an interest area.

So when the gap between you and another one with the interesting knowledge, that you felt you were quite competent at, is yawning, then you are on your toes to get to that new mark which is shown possible to you.

To draw from Shakespeare's line: "I'd love to have fat men around me", to grow steeper than self motivation, have knowledgeable men around you.

Earth needs to be shaken

Karnataka people would surely agree to this. Its sad to hear of the demise of a veteran, a legend in movies, Dr. Rajkumar. May his sould rest in peace in heaven. And I have no doubt that after his exemplary years of work he shall be in heaven and also resting if his so called devotees stop embarrassing him anymore.

Some of the great accolades of the devotees of Dr. Rajkumar, especially during the past 2 days, and considering he died a natural death at the age of 77:

1. Whole of Bangalore broke into chaos with the news of his death and people reached his house at that time of grief and became angry about his body being shifted around the house.

Don't know how people can be objectionable to a mourning family at such time.

2. Bangalore police screwed up on arranging for proper number of troops to handle a huge crowd which would come to see the mortal remains of the actor. On not seeing their god from closest vicinity, people started getting angry at police and burnt buses. Police also almost met god in a way of their own. Slapped, kicked and trapped in a bus which was pelted from all sides by the angry mob.

Interestingly the dance shown on the TV channels, of the people who had a just burnt the bus was more of fun than of any mourning or anger. It looked as if some bunch of jobless people who had never had the pleasure or experience of burning one whole BMTC bus wanted to see it burn.

3. One person has reportedly died in the whole lathi charge episode at the stadium. What's the net result? One person is killed because a legend died a peaceful, natural death.

What could have been done rather, I feel, is holding prayers, a public cremation ceremony with proper arrangement for all devotees who were genuinely interested in mourning than those who wanted to rejoice the fall of the system.

Its sad and shameful for every person here in Karnataka who has acted in the way TV has shown. It was a pitiful sight for the administration when Police was shown beaten by small kids, and the CM was shown saying "this is the BEST we could have done" on TV interview with NDTV. Its funny for the our project client who does not know why all the offices need to be closed because a famous actor has died. Even strange is the fact that people should run home because angry mob might harm them for no fault of theirs. Even medicine shops were closed, god knows what happens to those who are in need of medicines today. Restaurants were closed, I myself had problem getting lunch. Its tough to understand why the whole system needs to be brought down for mourning a death.

People who were asked to leave on Wednesday afternoon from their offices took printout of Dr. Rajkumar and put it on front of their vehicles so that the mob does not go for them. I myself had plans of crying on the shoulder of the person who stops me in between to avert any problem.
With this holiday, burning of a few buses and killing one person the whole forced mourning was successful and now believe in the words of Rajiv Gandhi that the earth shakes when a big tree falls or needs to be shaken so for best effects.

Ma Rewa

Medha patkar is again on a hunger strike to stop the raising of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. I believe she must be having enough good reasons to take such a drastic step to stop a development work. They have been raging a battle against the government and claiming that mega dams don't contribute to any good cause and are only beneficial to a small group of people who get money by building dams etc.

What I feel in their approach is that they lack a little more detail to their cause. I happened to see the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) site. The site talks that the claims made by the committee on the benefits of Sardar Sarovar are highly inflated, the rehabilitation is not done and all valid causes. Which are also perfectly believable. I mean no one would open his mouth and say "Is that so?" considering that's not too way off the line of corruption our netas are perpetrating. What I feel can add iron to the stick which NBA is wielding is hard data. You can say that how many villages are required to rehabilitate the people and bring that to media. Cost-benefit or cost-loss analysis as they would want to present can be put on their site so that it can be debated openly. Why is a dam which would give electricity to a country that's starving for it, irrigation for farmers of kucch, flood protection to people in Madhya pradesh and Gujarat be a bad proposition considering mammoth costs also. This question comes to my mind even at the risk of being labeled immoral for the plight of those displaced. Here's the link to the Narmada Valley Development Authority which is not better than the NBA site but atleast has sections about the major concerns a project should have. Has some data tables to show. I am not competitive enough to verify its sanctity but atleast its left for public to verify and debate about.

No one can give you the same piece of land which you cultivated or even the same place where you have spent your childhood. But for development sake these kinds of things have to be done. Only thing is that the Sardar Sarovar project should need far more planning in these issues as its for the people that the dam is being built. If the authorities take a non human stand then perhaps we would not need any dam in the first place. So they need to have organised and transparent re-location at the cost of perhaps giving more than what they already had to compensate them. Also this is perhaps a very good opportunity for the dreamers of township planning to cut out model villages, towns along the reservoir which beats the major city planning.
I think what these hungerstrikes do is justified considering it wakes up the sleeping netas who are then forced to do something for the plight of the people. To listen to them, give proper hearing to the illiterate who might not know how to shout out for their rights. That their rehabilitation is done in a proper and satisfactory manner. But at the end of it I feel that the dam should get completed and its benefits are shown rather than it being finished half or remain unfinished for ever.

Important interests

Last week on getting up at 6:30 am after snoozing my alarm for about 30 mins I sat down with the brush in my mouth to congratulate myself about what I was doing. I have been getting up every morning, without break (ok ok before you people shout.. with some obvious breaks) for putting my mind into guitar learning. I have already talked about my wonderful guitaring skills so much that I wont delve into that right now. What I noticed with a brush is that what things are actually important for me:

The most important things in my life have become:

Learning guitar than learning any new computer language. I can't remember a single time I have got up in the morning for studying (whenever I have done that my friends only have rememered that). This is considering I have been looking for some special upliftment in technology areas. Perhaps learning a new language or technology or even brushing them all over again gets me a better chance at interesting jobs. But rather I am comfortably ok with my other persuits and am only hoping for 30% reservations in IT industry for those who know guitar and cannot study. And I already have 50% reservation in Guitar classes for not scoring more because I have a busy schedule in IT industry :) I can score 50% lower than the class and yet be considered actively learning guitar.

Finally if you have to read a book then closest it comes to study is reading novels. Reading any material remotely related to work puts me to sleep.

Drinking on weekends is more important than having a girl friend. Yes only that you remember your gfs those that have gone extinct and those that are to be conserved only after a few pegs down.

Finding a song that you saw on TV on the net is quite an interesting challenge in life.

Weekend travel to a nearby place is also a great use of time (this one seriously).

And finally writing a blog is more important than chatting to a friend, who ahhmmm also happens to be a girl. Doesn't matter what you scribble but yes you're increasing the number of posts.

Now am going to get a call from friends who read this post about.. "abe kaun si ladki se baat kar rahe the be??"