Time to move ass again!

What motivates me?

- used to be sports when I was a kid - anything competitive to get the adrenalin going
- then for sometime it was electronics - I mean the challenge of making new circuits, typical jr. college days.. ya know!
- then it was extra-curricular activities - coz that meant expansion of friend circle beyond the college gang and beyond just engineers!
- then came the glory days of coding - yeah, technical challenges were fun... there's something about the joy of having resolved a nagging technical issue. Remember that calculus problem you just cudn't figure out for 2-3 hrs and then the solution flashed upon you like a sun peeping out of the clouds. It's the same feeling... so the coding days are kind of an extension of college days, at least mine were
- however that fascination faded away too. I was more motivated by people issues, rather than tech issues.
- at b-school the whole year was motivated by meeting more fascinating people every new day!
- and now, it's back to the grind. So what now?

Off late, thoughts have been drifting towards doing something of my own. Yeah, it's vague right now - no structure whatsoever to any idea, nor is there any semblance of any groundwork. Work's a bit rustic right now - feel jaded even after spending 12 busy hours at office. No challenges at all! It's funny - I find time for more things when there is less free time. The busier I am at work, the more time I spend on reading and thinking about other things too! Having free time makes me lazy - procrastinating has never been difficult for me. But I think I am reaching that stage now where I am gonna wake up on the right side of the bed someday - someday soon!

My Boys...

There's a new serial on TBS - it's called My Boys. It's about a girl and her friends - all guys! So it's got the usual load of girl-guy fun, tons of advice on relationships and the usual friendship vs love vs life thing. Yet, it's different. I guess a girl who has always felt comfortable being friends with guys would understand.

But come to think of it, I know a few girls who are more comfortable being friends with guys, than they are with other girls. I have heard this from my ex-girlfriend, my friends and other guys - it's easier to make friends with guys! And when more than 2 guys hang out together, jealousy is not an issue. Jealousy could become an issue - but only at a collective level. One guy in the group getting jealous of someone else coz of some third person getting close to that someone else - nah, that don't happen between guys. I think the primary reason that guys bond better on a collective level is coz of the lack of expectations and feelings. Guys understand that we don't poke into each other's emotions. There are times when you let a guy be by himself, as opposed to hugging him and trying to blackmail his thoughts out of him - while he is squirming around in his seat. You do that - and I bet that's the last you gonna see of him in the group. Every1 in the group has their own space. I think the American concept of personal space holds really well in this theory.

Anyway, if you got a group of buddies like that by your side, even hell can be a lot of fun!

Aap ki kashish...

Ok... this is not a romantic post... not even a post about a girl!

It just happens to be the song I am tuned in to right now Raaga. Well, why a Himessssssssss song of all the thousand options??? Coz it reminds me of Sarovar. Yeah, it's hard to believe, but sometimes you miss even the crappy things in life... coz the crappy things make others around them more enjoyable! If it weren't for Sarovar, I would have never had so many Maggi and Chai sessions behind I-block with the Haraamkhori Club of I-block SV3!!! Yeah, a hot cup of chai with tons of bakar - that's what I miss most here in the cold room of the Marriott Courtyard in Pittsburgh. Never thot a name could fit a place to such an extent - this place is really The Pitts!

Pradhan - in your honor, I am gonna listen to "Sutta" right now! Unfortunately can't play it on full blast - but what the heck - I am sure you appreciate the feelings!

Running, fighting, breaking...

Wonder why you get tired at the end of a hard day merely sitting in front of a laptop? Well there are the physiological reasons on one side which explain the obvious. But then who likes obvious answers. Consider what we, the modern-day knowledge workers, do all day in our consulting and revolutionary IT endeavors.

For starters we have to break down barriers or walls to engage fruitfully with our ever-changing clients and colleagues.
Then we are perennially chasing deadlines – one after the other after another.
And when we are not chasing something/someone down, we are probably fire-fighting or nailing down issues.
And of course we are always building consensus around something – more often than not its about the next dinner venue. But we still need to build it, right?

With so much running and fighting and breaking and chasing and building, is it a wonder that we are tired by the end of the day? I must say that English language offers so much room for creativity with words that one can easily concoct an illusion of hyper-activity with mere phrases. So next time someone says they are ready to drop-dead by the end of an avg work-day ask them if they have been actually working or indulging in word-play…

Blogfest

So Warikoo has been working on this idea of a photography competition, along with a couple of other good fellas from the ISB Alumni body. I think it’s a great initiative from this ever-enterprising, over-enthusiastic, always-ready-to-provide-a-shoulder-to-ladies buddy of mine. And it will give every1 something to look fwd to at Solstice – apart from the booze, of course.

But he is not the theme of the post – sorry Pappu, some other time. I was browsing around as usual and was reading the FastCompany blogs. There’s a Bathroom Blogfest going on there right now. It has a bunch of ladies writing about their experiences, ideas, suggestions and incidents – all dealing with the ladies room! And boy, can that topic spawn creativity!

So, I am thinking – why not have an ISB Blogfest!!! Majority of ISBians write blogs – and the number is only increasing with every batch. Check out the ISBleague if you don’t believe me. So how about that blogfest?

As I Pause here and think about it for 2 mins, a zillion ideas pop right out…

• We could start with “unique things about life@ISB”. Being a different planet that the campus is, this should be an easy one.
• Onto something more interesting – Bathroom habits of my roomie that really piss me off! There’s bound to be some, since there’s 1 bathroom for every pair of roomies.
• One could also create a tongue-in-cheek forum to pass messages to the administration – how to make Shahrukh more accountable? What does Sridevi really do?
• One could always have a jargon fest – but with a twist – include only those incidents where the jargon backfired royally. Or application of abstract mgmt theories to everyday life.
• There could be some productive usage too – takeaways from each term – academic only! Boy, would this be useful for placements or what!

And if it works out well within ISB, who’s to stop you from taking it beyond ISB? Clubs can organize a competition in the form of a blogfest. Announce it, publicize it and release the topic with a 2-hr window to accept entries.

Imagine what a colorful window it will offer to the world about life at ISB…

The Borsalino test

Humans can't stop doing it to each other. They must validate every relationship they have. Not once, not twice, but over and over again - over the time that a relationship lasts.

The last time you sat with your mates did you notice that one of your pals is slightly off-colour? (s)he is not laughing with the same gusto. You notice it for over an hour and you wanna know why! You ask, but the topic is brushed off. The splinter starts to grow. Am I not good enough for him/her to share the info with me? You need validation. Your pal's problem may not matter after that - it's between you 2 now.

Let's not even go that far. How about a new acquaintance that you meet? You find the person exciting to talk to. You see this person making good conversation with your other frenz. But will (s)he make it to the inner circle? And in comes the test! Its almost involuntary. You observe this person in different settings, with your frenz around, with just you alone, with other people, with strtangers - judging all the time.

In matters of lurv, it's gets even better, or worse if you prefer! You gotta watch every step, every syllable you utter, every excuse you make for not calling through the day(and god help you if you said you were too busy to call), even every call you don't make! There's a question lurking around every corner. And the stupidity of it all is that each one of us wants to pass all the tests. So we strive, we fall in love and we hope to rise. We fall to pitifull depths in an effort to please the other. We lose friends and even family at times. But we console ourselves it is all worth it. Most loves go through this phase. The next time you are going through one, pause and think about it. Passing the test is probably not worth the effort... or even the result - if it can only give you a claustrophobic existence.

However an intelligent conversation that unknowingly becomes a means of validation of another's intelligence and potential can be a positive form of such behaviour.

Yes, we all go through them and all of us subject others to them - all the time! Life is a series of Borsalino tests!

PS: The title was picked up from the novel Shantaram. Read it, if you haven't yet!

Latin anyone???

I have been fascinated by Latin - on and off, as I encounter interesting phrases used in movies, mags, books, etc. Some popular ones are...

Carpe Diem - Seize the day -- Definitely one of my favorites.

Mea Culpa - by my fault

Locus standi - the right to be heard in court

Magan cum laude - with great honour, usually with academic distinction

Quo vadis - where are you going?

Reductio ad absurdum - reduction to the absurd. Used as "proving the truth of a proposition by falsifying all the alternatives".

Veni, vidi, vici - I came, I saw, I conquered!

And then there are some rather interesting ones...

In vino veritas - in wine there is truth

Oh yeah baby, there's no denying that!

Memento mori - remember that you have to die!

Multus amicus, nullus amicus - A friend to all is a friend to none

Ye all who think life's a popularity contest, think again!

So I tried to translate some common phrases to latin, resulting in this...

Know yourself - Teneo vestri

You are not alone - vos es non unus

Life is beautiful - vita est decorus

Live like a king - ago amo a rex rgis

The truth is out there - verum est sicco illic

Made for each other - no pro invicem

Stop wasting your time - subsisto populatio vestri vicis

Get a life - adepto a vita

hello, why are you still reading? :P

Web 2.0

Internet today, is different from the original Net. I am not even comparing it to ARPAnet, the network of defense systems that spawned the internet. That was merely a network of computers. That’s going a bit too far back. Just compare it to what the internet was a decade ago. The net that we see today, despite still being a network of computers, is much more than just that!

The early net was all about ease of communication. Email was the hottest thing then. Then came the era of double-clicks! Portals spawned everywhere. All they did was assimilate a summary of information on specific topics and provide you with a zillion different links to click your way to death. And by the time you were on your 10th click-through, you lost track of what you were looking for in the first place. You would start looking for information on nuclear disasters and end up on a breast-augmentation website.

And now we have Web 2.0. Yes, in hindsight, the tehnocrati of our wired world have labeled the original net as Web 1.0. Web 2.0 is all about collaborative computing using the web itself as a platform enabling everything else as web services. The shining stars of Web 2.0 are Google, Skype, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Orkut, Flickr… you get the drift, right?

So what’s different? Well compare the above names to their peers from the bygone era – Google vs Altavista, Skype vs ???, Wikipedia vs Britannica, del.icio.us vs IE Favorites, Orkut vs ???, Flickr vs Ofoto. You see, some of them don’t even have comparables. Google’s adsense has blasted every other search engine out of the solar system. Skype turned the telecom industry on its head. Who goes to Britannica anymore? Where do you look for friends now – on Orkut or on Yahoo People Search? And sharing photographs was never so much fun as it is with Flickr. Every single one of them works on network effects! Their value is in the number of users. And its not surprising that all of them incidentally provide the highest levels of service too. Well, for more and more people to subscribe to a service, it has to be superlative. It has to be good enough to be recommended to friends and family!

Well, makes one wonder, what next??? Google, today, probably has more “relevant” data on you than you know about yourself. We store all our information online. We blog about ourselves and blogroll others. We tag others’ photographs and pages and leave comments everywhere. We have links leading back to us from every page that we visit. And everywhere there is a history about us – I think that’s a serious abuse of the word “history”. With all this info in the public domain, is it surprising that identity thefts are on the rise? Is the day too far when we may have intelligent machines gathering data on individuals and analyzing it in the name of customizing? And let us acknowledge that all of us want the convenience of single sign-on. How convenient would that be, as opposed to memorizing a gazillion user ids and pwds. Well, be glad that you don’t have a single sign-on coz that will put you at maximum risk. One theft of your ID and pwd and your life will not be the same again… just like that!

That time of the year...

Tension builds up with every passing moment. Peer pressure reaches unimaginable levels. Not even in your wildest dreams did you imagine that you will be doing the wierdest things just to keep up with your friends. Exaggeration has no limits. And by the way it's not exaggeration, it's called creative writing.

The hunt has begun to form the best possible prep group! Of course all the nerds have already been taken. Boy, this must be the only time of the year when the hottest bimbo is seen hanging out with the nerdiest guy ;).

This is the time when you will scour all the depths of your experience to create bullet points. Even a book that you won for standing third in an intra-class competition in 8th std is an achievement. Ok... that's stupid! But I know some places where even that is acceptable :).

While you may have been wetting your pants at the prospect of making a presentation to the client executives, you will now be braggin about your client management skills and your astuteness at sniffing out potential business opportunities.

An obvious silly change in design that helped you reduce the delivery time for your code suddenly becomes a quality improvement initiative. And of course who can ignore your incredible time mgmt skills which enable you to deliver ahead of time... always! Anyone ever heard of Underpromise, then Overdeliver??? Yup, I just spelt out the secret of all onsite project coordinators :))).

Well folks its the start of placement season, and it's resume time... it's that time of the year again!

Stop existing... Start living!

What happens when you stay away from work for too long?
· You will get used to the empty hours and internet will become your refuge. Orkut helps, no doubt!
· Checking mails will become a fulltime activity and you will refresh your mailbox at least 500 times a day.
· You think, “Finally, the world seems to have realized that making me work is a serious waste of my talent!”.
Think about how many hours of not-working-me it took them to realize that – morons!
· Nothing. Really nothing! If work needs to be done, and you are not there to do it, it will find someone else!
Work will get done. You are NOT indispensable.

And that’s when it will HIT you, when you have been dispensed… when you are not required anymore… when people just pass you by… when you merely exist due to the involuntary act of breathing… when you don’t LIVE anymore!

Mora saiyyan moh se bole na...

Sawan beeto jaye beharwa
mann mera ghabaraye

Aiso gaye pardes piya tum
chain hume nahi aaye

Mora saiyyan moh se bole na
mai lakh jatan kar haaree
Mora saiyyan moh se bole na...

Pyaar tumhe kitna karte hai
tum yeh samajh nahi paaoge

Jab hum na honge to beharwa
bolo kya tab aaoge

Mora saiyyan moh se bole na...

A different Diwali...

I am obviously feeling nostalgic right now. Been talking to folks back in India, wishing them a bright and cheerful Diwali! Yes, I am longing to see beautifully lit homes, elegantly dressed damsels and the whole festive atmosphere. I miss the sweets and the crackers. But it's not so bad. Technology allows me to chat with every1 at no cost. I can still participate in every1's festivities, albeit long-distance.

But then I reach out to the folks here with me. We are only as lonely as we force ourselves to be. So, we go to catch a first day screening of DON at a nearby desi theater. Damn, even SRK is tolerable this far from home! So what if he always overacts? We visit a Ganesh temple marked by a glowing neon sign between a grocery store and a dentist's clinic in a shopping complex! Well, the lord doesn't seem to mind the location... so why should we :). Came back and decided to have home-cooked desi meal. And expert cooks that we are, we served ourselves a lavish meal of plain rice and dal with some delicious mango pickle... and topped it up with a choc ice-cream! Have to say it was one of the better meals I have had since coming here.

I guess we could have easily sulked individually - each one of us calling home, friends and feeling increasingly more helpless after each conversation. But cultural needs are powerful drivers that bring us together in such times. I am glad I spent this Diwali making new friends...

Don't be a punk!!!

If I were to follow my heart, here’s what I’d really like to do and to be:

· Become a photographer.
· Play at least one sport at pro level – ideally squash!
· Bike around the country – both in US and back home in India.
· Run a shack in Goa.
· Live in a commune with all my best buddies and their families – back to the 70s!
· Start a tech business, naturally coz IT is all I have done in my professional life.
· Make a difference to the society – apun ka bhi putla khada hona mangta hai!

I could go on with that list. Or I could talk about a man who is really following his heart and actually putting his money where his mouth is.

If you have followed the story of eBay, chances are you have read about Jeff Skoll. After raking in millions from the success of eBay, he moved to Philanthropy and founded the Skoll Foundation. If that wasn’t engaging enough, the man went on to found another company, this time in Hollywood – Participant Productions. This production house has come out with some of the best and most hard-hitting films of 2005 and 2006. The list encompasses Syriana, North Country, An inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck, Murderball and the upcoming Fast Food Nation. That is an impressive list by any standards. I chanced upon all these details as I was digging around after reading an article on Fast Company.

So, if you are a man, follow your heart. Or you are just another punk!!!

Falling in LOVE… again!

This is a back-dated post, which I could not publish earlier... originally written on Sept 20th.

A grey morning. Got out of the bed at 7. It was painful; the morning was perfect to stay curled up under the blankets. But she was calling… :)

Washed up hastily and immediately took her out to breakfast. Same old dosa, but the chai felt great – courtesy of the showers outside. The rain was practically pulling at me… prodding me, cajoling me, and begging me to take her out. And I succumbed to nature’s charm. She obviously wasn’t in the mood. I mean who would be on a chilly grey morning like that! But I persisted. Patted her, charmed her, pleaded with her and managed to warm her up to the idea of going out in that weather.

The initial resistance always adds to the game ;). But once she got in the groove, there was no stopping her. Her response to my slightest touch, her drawl as I tried to push her further, and the conversation between the 2 of us – it was just like old times. There wasn’t much traffic that early, largely due to the rains. But those who saw us couldn’t resist a second glance. Getting drenched felt different that morning. Whisper valley felt much more serene than it usually is. Even the buffaloes made way for us that day.

Together, we rode the highways, we climbed the hills, wound up and down jubilee hills and hit the home stretch after necklace road. That morning, yet again, as always, I fell in love with her – my baby, my first love, my RX135!

New place

I am posting after a really long gap. And I am posting from a new location, my new home - atleast for the immediate future. Feels a little wierd. Feels new! Feels like I don't belong here.

I am in an alien place - yes, I am a "legal alien" in the US of A. Been trying to adjust to the new life for the past one week. And I must say, doin a pretty decent job of it so far. Hope, Anger (or maybe Anguish), Frustration, Tension, Peaceful, Longing - feeling everything at once. Culture shock? Not really, I had a fair idea of what to expect, having been here before.

But something is different this time. I could feel folks back home were more emotional this time. It's a big sacrifice on their part.

I didn't wanna restart on this note. But that's the way it is right now...

Long-distance relationships

Long-distance relationships are a myth! Most couples have to deal with it at one point of time or the other. I am talking about the couples I know… my tech + MBA background should tell you what kind of highly mobile species I am referring to here. With the constant churn in jobs and professional responsibilities and not to forget individual aspirations, it is inevitable that couples today are leading increasingly distinct lives. Pawmee says he is happy to occupy just 15% of his girl’s life. And he expects no “less” in return! But can most other couples say the same about their partners?

Techie couples get caught up with separate projects in 2 remote corners of the world and then go through the emotionally draining stages of prophesying-your-undying-love to why-can’t-you-understand-my-situation to honey-it’s-ok-we-will-be-together-soon to we-are-growing-apart to let’s-try-to work-on-this to I-don’t-want-you-to-work-anymore to I-understand to I-don’t-care-just-quit-your-job-and-come-back to this-is-not-working-for-us-anymore to god-knows-where…

B-school couples are even queerer. They go through the stages of let’s-just-get-to-know-each-other to I-can’t-plan-my-courses-without-you to we-should-both-get-the-highest-paying-job to damn-we-are-in-diff-geographies-now to let’s-postpone-marriage-for-a-year-or-two to let’s-establish-ourselves-in-the-corporate-jungle to both-of-us-wanna-be-CEOs to why-can’t-we-just-live-together to let’s-start-our-own-business and again to god-knows-where…

But then I see my friends, who are beating the odds and successfully tackling the issues involved and who live in the hope and confidence that theirs is not a relationship that will go one of the 2 ways described above. And I smile. I acknowledge the strength it takes to pull it through trying times. Hats off to all of you – Chotu, Pawmee, Meetika, Mandy, Warikoo, Kapil!

Yes, it’s a myth – but one that doesn’t necessarily end on a sad note! Every myth has a hero and a lesson. I think it’s about time I learnt mine and moved on…

What's your type???

Types of bloggers:

The second-handers - these guys desperately need rehab. Can't survive a single day without checking out their own blog at least 10 times a day... for the comments, what else? Their primary motivation for blogging is the comments they inadvertently seek from others.

The pseudo-realists - they create an alternate world through their blog and the community built around it. It's their escape from reality.

The technocrati - they blog with a specific purpose. Every word on their blog is measured and is placed strategically to derive the maximum literary mileage out of it.

The rainmakers - they make rain from their readers' tears! Emotional posts is their specialty and they have a special circle of female admirers.

The I-want-in types - these guys blog just coz every1 else is!

The muddle-heads - their posts are all over the place. No agenda, no structure, no trends in their posts. These are the random walkers who churn out ocassional jewels.

The wannabe critics - they pick up news items from anywhere and try to spin their own yarn around it. Their posts are mostly unoriginal secondary reports like secondary market research.

The artists - the genuine entertainers who make the time spent on their blogs worth the money! These are the quick-wits from your college gang, who can make a joke every other sentence.

I guess the above classification makes me a definite muddle-head! What's your type???

If I missed your type... the shout-box is yours...

Disruptive Innovations and Technologies

We keep talking about disruptive technologies all the time, especially in Competitive Strategy cases. Well, here's a list of what I feel have been the most disruptive innovations and technologies through the ages...

Fire - no doubt on this one. Anyone got a burning objection?
Wheel - it definitely turned the world faster, literally.
Agriculture - we would not be reading about historical civilizations, but for this innovation.
Gun-powder - Forever changed the way conflicts could be solved!
Printing Press - hastened the exchange of social and scientific ideas across Europe, the Arab world and Asia. The renaissance almost never happened without this one!
Electricity - one word for the effects - Shocking!
Aviation - flights of fancy have never been the same since the Wright brothers took their maiden flight!
The Bomb - perhaps, here's a rare one we could have done without.
Bonsai - I know, I know. But think about it, how much has the world benefited from the Jap's fascination for minimizing things to the smallest possible, and then squeeze it some more.
The microprocessor - this one's encroaching more and more personal space. It all started with the PC, then it permeated the ovens and washing machines, then cars, and now cellphones.
TCP/IP and WWW - gave communication a completely new meaning. Changed social, economic and political behaviour of the entire world.
Nanotechnology - not just more miniaturization, but a completely new range of applications.
Genetics - Watson and Crick never knew what they were about to unleash.

So where do you think the next disruptive wave is coming from???

Friends and Acquaintances

It's quite a futile exercise to walk down memory lane and count all my friends and acquaintances. For one, there will be far too many to count. And for another, I don't possibly remember them all.

But what I do remember are those moments that converted some of those acquaintances into friends...

All the evenings spent on terrace flying kites or watching planes take-off or discussing random stuff.
All the evenings spent at her place in perennial fear of her uncle's arrival.
A hot cup of tea at 2:30 in the morning shared with my best pals, followed by random walks around the campus.
The hug of recognition for your competitor's ability after 10 gruelling games of squash.
The innumerable pranks on a silly girl who was an ever-willing bakri and the gang who got never tired of pulling her leg.
All the night-outs and idealistic plans of changing the world - literally. And we weren't even drinking then!

There are innumerable such incidents. However, they invariably culminate in that ONE glance of recognition that tells you that you have crossed the line - from acquaintance to friend. Now I realize what Richard Bach said in Illusions...

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

Time to make new acquaintances and friends again... :)

Roll-call for ISB Class of 06

Read an article about the Class of 77 from IIM-A in today’s Brand Equity supplement. Here’s the who’s who from that class… Vindi Banga – Unilever, Rama Bijapurkar – Independent Market Strategy Consultant, Arvind Wable - ED & CEO, FCB-Ulka, Atul Sharma – Burger King, APAC, Javed Usmani – Executive of the PMO, Anand Halve – Chlorophyll.

I know that most people from non-marketing and non-advertising fields have never heard of these names. Neither had I, before reading the article. But the point is that all of them are dominating their chosen field and how!

So where’s the illustrious Class of 06 going to be, 20 years down the road? Here’s my take on the likely positions of just some of my peers from ISB…

Mandy – will be teaching Branding in some god-forsaken university through his ultra-bright fluorescent PPTs (yes he will still be using PPTs!) and getting orgasmic about his latest theory on brand valuation.

Warikoo – Will be running a massage parlor for female gorillas on the beaches of Africa (only Africa may have unexplored beaches then). He will have special bunker-beds so that he can massage 5 of them simultaneously. And the song in background will be… yeh hai meri kahaani

Pawmee – will be rearing chickens on his farm, after having tried his hand at being a suave marketer, a gigolo, the next Shahrukh Khan of ISB, sarpanch of Belgaum, an F1 race driver, an author, etc, etc.

Kapil Sharma – without any doubt, he will be the leading porn star of the age. He would have patented his special dance moves by then and would be earning royalty from ISB Campuses across the world where he would be conducting the course “Leadership lessons through dirty dancing”.

Suzie – would romancing her 200^th boyfriend while simultaneously juggling the demands of being the CEO of her realty firm, launching her own line of clothes and writing the most (in)famous weekly gossip column ever.

Chotu – will be running a special school for adolescent boys from Ujjain so that she’s never in short supply ;)

Mitika – will be doing something nobody can predict. If you can predict, you don’t know Mitika!

And that’s what I call DIVERSITY!!!

Easy Money

5 of us went out last Saturday. We spent 6k on the dinner itself. Wondering where the money is coming from. More importantly, I wonder how my dad would react if he came to know that I blew 1/3rd of his last drawn salary on a silly weekend dinner! Are we so flushed with money right now that we can simply afford to flush it down our throats and not care a rat’s whisker about it?

They say the hunt for talent is the biggest battleground in Corporate India. Every industry is rising in India right now – IT, Finance, Retail, healthcare, Entertainment, Auto, Manufacturing, Textile, Chemicals, Energy… you name it! No wonder executives are being lured away with fatter pay packets. Consumer Product managers are moving from selling soaps to software. Retail managers are moving from selling clothes to durables to entertainment. Sales managers are moving from confectionaries to entertainment. IT managers are moving from project delivery to strategy. It’s a classic demand and supply case stupid! No wonder executives are paid their weight in dollars, even in India. Is it still a wonder how we can afford those dinners and clubbing nights and after-party revelry – it’s just a measly few thousand rupees after all!

What could I have done better with that 6k INR?

Perhaps I could have…
- donated them to a charitable cause
- bought a gift for my sister
- taken a small trip into the country side and rediscovered the rain-soaked tracks of the hinterland
- invested in equity
- bought some food for some street urchins
- bought some great books
.
.
.
But hey, isn’t that 6k a sunk cost? So why am I still thinking about it? I don’t know, you tell me…

Insecurity, Empathy and Collective Learning

Waiting for the DHL courier to arrive from USCIS. Meanwhile, someone’s request for a work permit was denied. It’s funny how it makes you nervous about your own permit. Suddenly you want that assurance that your case has been approved. Insecurity is such a fickle state of mind. It makes you apprehensive, although you can’t relate exactly to the other person’s experience.

What does it mean to relate with another’s experience? You can never be in another’s shoes… never! Each person’s experience shapes his/her response to the given circumstances. And you can’t replicate the exact set of experiences across 2 different human beings. Yet, all that is just theory. A logical impossibility can be disproved by that human quality of empathy. When you relate, you empathize with the other person. It may not necessarily evoke any compassion. It could be just a cold and impersonal identification of the other person’s frame of mind.

And the more experiences I gather – in first person or indirectly – the better I will be at relating to other people, their situation and their thoughts. That’s why I am a sucker for collective learning. I can never learn alone what I can learn when working in a group. And that – working in groups – was the best part about the year at ISB!

Random stuff…

Could not finish Against the Gods. The lesson in history of probability theory got a little too boring after the first few chapters. The initial part is very well written. But after the first 60 pages or so it becomes a history of mathematics. Anyway, I could not have read that over the weekend when I was visiting Nagpur.

So, I picked up Bill Bryson’s Neither Here nor There. This one’s a revelation. The man has a serious talent for writing travelogues. And he’s funny to the point of being wicked! Outrageously funny at times and a laugh-by-the-minute description of Europe at its quirkiest – this book is a must read.

Found 2 more interesting titles while browsing around the library catalogue and Amazon. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins and The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. Have added them to my To be Read Soon list.

Watched The Usual Suspects last night – again! Reminded of the time when Warikoo had arranged for a common screening at AC2 MLT. Oh boy, does that room evoke memories or what! FOGP - miss you guys!

The business of Tagging

I have been tagged... so, here goes...

I am… someone you would easily miss when walking down the street.

I believe… that the universe is full of aliens more scared of us than we are of them. Someday an intergalactic highway will indeed wipe out this teeny-weeny planet that we think of as our whole wide world!

I read… erotic fiction on the web, especially the sadomasochistic kind!!!

I dream… that I am having a threesome with the 2 hottest imaginable chics and they turn into vampires only to suck the life out of me!

I think… about SEX, all the time!!!

I cannot… stop thinking about the mail which said that a Pig’s orgasm can last for more than 30 minutes!!! Lucky pig.

I wish… I could be Calvin for one day – just one day :)

I wonder… what would happen if the function of the sexes reversed all of a sudden. Men started carrying babies, women started wooing men…

I want… to be that pig in my next life. Imagine… 30 minutes of bliss!!!
.
.
.

All right... if you have read through all that trash.... here are some bytes of reality, read on....

I am… just another guy from small town India, trying to make it big and break the shackles of a small-town middle-class mindset.

I believe… that each day should be lived to its fullest and there’s no point in looking back on a day where you could not do that… Carpe Diem, baby!

I read… anything that catches my fancy, though I seem to be outgrowing fiction with every passing book. Peter Bernstein’s Against the Gods refuses to be put down.

I dance… only when I am forced to. And obviously I suck at it.

I sing… when I am happy or alone.

I cry… not that often, but usually for reasons not to be disclosed here.

I love… my bike. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as the breeze in my hair, whatever little is left of it ;). Also love to sleep… can do that anywhere, anytime!

I would give my arm… for hmmmm… nothing! Nothing can be worth more than what I can achieve by working for it. If I can’t motivate myself to work for something, it ain’t worth having.

I wish… I had wings and my legs never get tired. Then I would be able to walk or fly over every imaginable piece of land and water on this planet. There’s so much to discover… still!

I want… to die a contented being, full of joy brought by a life fulfilled.

I should… post to my blog more regularly. And definitely take a shot at one professional sport, at least.

I cannot… stand the sight of an open wound.

I would love to… go back to Nagpur and do something for the people, maybe do something TO the people and make them more enterprising.

I will… get rich, or die trying :)

I hope… that someday I will understand myself.

I think… therefore I AM!!!

I tag…
Pawmee

The Golden Mean & Fibonacci

The Golden Mean or the Golden Ratio or the Divine Proportion or just call it Phi has fascinated intellectuals throughout recorded history. The golden ratio can be obtained by dividing a line into 2 parts, such that the ratio of length of the original line to the larger section is the same as the ratio of the larger section to the smaller section.

A/ B = B / C = 1.618…

This ratio is the number Phi (1.618…). It can also be arrived at by dividing a large Fibonacci series number by its previous number in the series.

The beauty of this number however lies in its applicability. It provides a beautiful link between symmetry and asymmetry. The ancient Greeks used it to lend beauty of proportion to their architecture. Leonardo Da Vinci found the golden mean in the human body through his anatomical studies – the ratio of length of human body below and above the navel is the golden ratio. It is also found in the length of bones as one travels from the tip of the finger up the length of a human hand. The renaissance painters are supposed to have used it extensively. The ratio of adjacent sides of a credit card works out within 2% of the golden mean. The horizontal member of most christian crosses splits the vertical member according to the golden mean. The General Assembly building of United Nations in New York also makes extensive use of this ratio.

This brings us to Fibonacci. How exactly did he discover the golden mean? Well, he was tackling a problem related to breeding of rabbits when he chanced upon the now famous Fibonacci series and subsequently the golden mean. The problem concerned the number of rabbits that would be born in a year from an original pair of rabbits, assuming that every month each pair produces another pair and that rabbits begin to breed when they are 2 months old. While solving this he found that the number of pairs every month after the fourth month would be: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 243 and so on. The beauty of this series is that each successive number is the sum of the two preceeding numbers. If the rabbits kept up the pace for a hundred months, the total number of pairs would be a whopping 354,224,848,179,261,915,075!!!

But more than anything else, Fibonacci probably established the significance and utility of the Arab numeric system in the eyes of the Europeans. His publication of the Liber Abaci not only intoduced the new numeral system to Europeans, it also demonstrated ways of using this system to solve practical issues like bookkeeping, conversion of weights, etc.

Many people believe that the Fibonacci numbers can be used to make a variety of predictions, especially about the stock market. Although the concept of risk and its measurement evolved in the fifteenth century, Fibonacci in the 12th century perhaps enabled the first step in making measurement a key factor in the taming of risk.

And by the way, Fibonacci means Blockhead. The real name of the mathematician is Leanorado Pisano, and he was anything but a blockhead.

Post inspired by the first few chapters of “Against the Gods” by Peter L. Bernstein.

Importance of accompaniments

Pizzas should always served with Cold BEER – I am talking about the American variety of Pizza here! I dare not insult the authentic Italian pizza; I am big fan myself J. It’s funny how many times it’s the side dishes that make the main course more succulent. Or to generalize it further, how accompaniments make the central item more enjoyable!

Ever observed how beer tastes better when head banging to your kinda music? It ain’t just the beer – you could kiss anyone at the instant when the perfect rock ballad comes along with a chilled beer! The entire atmosphere changes in front of your eyes and place suddenly earns its respect in your opinion. That is why it is so critical to find your kinda pub – the music, the drink, the people – everything has to be complimentary to make the whole package worthwhile.

I wonder –
Why does a hero need a side-kick,
Why wine and cheese go together,
Why Tom and Jerry will never be the same by themselves,
Why the river always flows to the sea,
How a symphony would sound without the drums,
Why a man loves a woman?

Current Reading

Finished Arthur Hailey’s The Moneychangers last night. It is a book about bankers and the frauds of high finance, definitely not the Wall Street and Trading types. Found it a bit on the slower side, perhaps because it is an old book. All-in-all Hailey did not impress me that much.

What I certainly am impressed with are the first few pages of Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City. This one’s about the enigmatic city of Mumbai/ Bombay/ Bambai – call it what you want. Mehta’s family migrated from Kolkata to New York, with a decade’s stopover at Mumbai. It was enough to hook Mehta to the city for the rest of his life. The book takes a first person look at the dreamland and succeeds in creating a true-to-life mural resplendent in its myriad hues.

Also read Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker sometime back. This one’s an out and out Wall Street drama, fed live from the 41^st floor of Salomon Brothers in its heydays – when bond traders were the kings and equity departments relegated practically to the backrooms in faraway Atlanta.

On the radar for the immediate future – India: A wounded Civilization by VS Naipaul, Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein.

The Great Indian Middle Class

If you want to see the great Indian middle class at its most colourful and nosiest, where would you go?

Well, I suggest you try one of the various low-cost airlines flight or the airport of any major Indian city/ town. The signs of new-found wealth are unmistakable. Not many years ago, air-travel was a luxury affordable to the rich or to the high ranking executives whose travel was borne by their organizations. Not so anymore. Increasingly more middle class youngsters are opting to save the tedious hours spent in a train journey and instead hop to their destinations in less than half the time – all courtesy of the budget airlines. The laptop swinging IT brigade is ubiquitously present at every airport and in every flight. But more and more families are taking the aerial route for their pleasure trips. And the more the merrier.

As I occupied the last row Aisle seat in an Air Deccan flight to Kolkata, I couldn’t help but hear an unmistakable scratching sound. A sideways glance revealed my neighbor playfully engaged in making the best use of his pen in dowsing the itch in his armpit… gross! A few minutes into the flight and the rush for the restrooms were palpable. I simply could not ignore the queue right behind and around my seat. Multiple seatbelts-on warnings were conveniently ignored as ladies, gents and kids suddenly had a simultaneous urge to relieve themselves. Two boys, traveling with their mom, were creating a ruckus a couple of rows ahead with all the toys they had brought on board. Some of them looked like they had been picked up from the neighbourhood mela when they had been visiting their mama or tau or mausi or chacha. And of course there were the beetle-nut chewing babus at their shining best in starched white shirt and trouser, further accentuated by their flapping Bata slippers!

It is a sign of the changing times. As the 400 million strong educated Indian middle class grabs an increasing share of the new jobs and as the Indian polity embraces Capitalistic Socialism, you can only observe this scenario in other areas. Check out any new shopping mall, multiplex theater, restaurant, etc – and you cannot miss the vibrant Indian Middle Class.

LiveStrong

Lance Armstrong – super-athlete, doper, lucky bastard, fighter… which one of these?

An unprecedented 7 consecutive Tour de France victories from 1999 to 2005 makes it a little hard to ignore this man. Sports folklore would never be the same again! Winning TDF once takes a lifetime’s efforts. And to win it after recovering from testicular cancer, after having nearly crossed over to the other side – is nothing short of spectacular. In fact spectacular is a word that fails spectacularly when used to describe his achievement, his life!

Armstrong’s life has only one credo – fight like hell! Be it cycling, his personal life, dealing with media or the life-altering cancer; he has dealt with all of them in the only way he knows – by not giving up. Had it not been for the cancer, we would have never known the Lance Armstrong we know today.

Upon reading his 2 autobiographical books – It’s not about the Bike and Every Second Counts – one realizes how fanatically he cherishes the memory of his battle with cancer. But more importantly, he has used that as a benchmark for all his struggles in life. Whenever the effort seems to bog him down he falls back on that one memory and pushes his body over that extra mile or for that extra yard of pace on the road.

There has been enough research on his muscle strength and his lung capacity already. No other athlete has perhaps been subjected to as many drug tests as Lance Armstrong. And no one has found a trace of anything so far. While he enjoys certain natural advantages over other athletes, it is his will and the urge to fight that has taken him across the line for seven successive years in that famed Yellow Jersey!

Love him, or hate him - you can't ignore him! If there's one lesson to walk away with from Lance's life , it has to be - Fight Like Hell!!!