Choices..

Welcome to a new blogger

2010-05-13T20:28:00.002+05:30

I welcome one of my best friend, guide, mentor, philospher and one of the funniest guy (at least he thinks so :-) ) to the world of blogging:
http://bakarrboy.blogspot.com/ by Saurabh Banglani

What an Idea sir ji

2010-05-08T08:50:00.002+05:30

One Sunday, I was walking to the nearest departmental store for some daily needs shopping. What I saw next is quite normal in our country, but what I did next is not at all normal of myself.
I saw a traffic policeman talking to a wrongly parked car driver. I always admire the tough job of traffice police. How they have to stand against every weather, pollution, dirt everything, its really very tough. And I guess they are not paid in proportion to their job. But still, that is no reason to sought for other 'means' to earn.
Back to the scene, I was sad on what was happening. I knew the car driver will offer some money which will go into the pocket of the policeman and policeman will demand for more. I have seen this happening earlier as well. But as I was myself driving many of the times, I avoided glancing at them so that I may not fall in their trap. But this time, I just stood there. I dont know what compelled me to do so. But I just stood there looking at them. I did nothing, said nothing just staring at the proceedings. This made both of them little uncomfortable, policeman more. He kept on stealing a look on me from corner of his eyes. And finally, to save the embarassment he took out his receipt book. Wrote something and handed over to the driver, the driver signed on it and paid the fine.
May be, it was all mockery by both of them.
May be, it happened only because this particular policeman has the shame to save from embarassment.
May be, May be, May be.. But I felt really good. This is a silent response to prevailing corruption at the lowest level. If we all react to such incidents in the similar way, it will help moral policing the police !
What say ?

Sad? Unbelieavable but True

2010-05-06T19:14:00.002+05:30

The most sad thing I read in long long time:
As per the law, the death penalty will have to be confirmed by the Bombay High Court. Kasab also has the right to move the high court against the trial court verdict. Even if the high court upholds the judgment, he can appeal to the Supreme Court. If the apex court too upholds the sentence, he has the option of filing a mercy petition before the President of India.
source: Times of India

Can't we have a special case for such rarest of rare criminal? Why do we have laws that treats 'extreme terrorists with proven guilts' equal to common man? I agree these laws are to prevent atrocities by Police, forced acceptance of crime etc. but Pakistan manufactured Terrorists should not be treated in that way. Crores are spent in his security. It is all tax-payers money! These tax-payers include those who lost their precious one on 2611.
What lesson wil more fidayeen get? Do more attacks? At most you will be given death sentence? That too will take more than a decade.. And with such a weak laws on security (quote: burqa clad suspicious woman led to landing of plane), it would be easy to hijack any plane and terrorist get free, ready for more attacks !

Sachin on Twitter

2010-05-05T19:36:00.001+05:30

A small tweet on this blog to advertise Sachin Tendulkar on Twitter: sachin_rt !!

Highlights IPL 2010

2010-04-25T22:20:00.003+05:30

IPL 2010 would be remembered for so many things. Other than Cricket and Controversies this years IPL would be remembered for _____
1) Dhoni losing his mobile phone again and again, pleading on national television to stop stealing his mobile. I wonder what does it mean? Does it mean Dhoni is so busy playing cricket that he cannot take care of his belongings? But thats not true, because whenever he is playing cricket or flying around the globe he has to be 'connected to friends'. Afterall Facebook is the most important use of a mobile phone !
2) Abhishek Bachchan, after getting out-performed by his co-actors in any movie which has any other character than himself :-), is now repeatedly, daily got beaten by his clerk. Still, clerk gets paid less because he is poor, lady gets paid less because she is a woman ! But Abhishek is paid much more becaue he is Bachchan !!
3) Sehwag and Gambhir, both married, shows there desperation for a girl, allegedly Vidya. However, both cannot afford individual mobile phones. Probably, IPL fees is proportional to number of runs they made !
4) Bunch of losers (RCB, DD, DC, RR) who not even play poor, but also sing poor. I guess MI, CSK players would be happy that they dint get sponsorship from KingFisher to prove their singing talent.
5) Karbonn Kamaal Catch, Maxx mobile Strategic Timeout, Citi moment of Success, DLF Maximum.. Very soon we'll forget chauka (four), chhakka (six), whatta catch, bowled. We'll only know their sponsorors !
6) Sanjay Dutt asking Ranbir Kapoor (leader of Youngistan) super intelligent questions to get Pepsi and Sexy !

Q1 further

2010-04-18T21:01:00.003+05:30

I really tried to gain patience and will power.

Reduced salt intake in food.. Dhanu always kept an eye on it as she always says this causes 'hypertension' :-)... still don't believe it, but believe its better to have low salt diet
Reduced Sugar.. but really couldn't control on chocolates!
more Fruits and Fruit juices in diet :-)
No time wasting on Orkut, Facebook....

Some quick updates:

started Tennis: Thanks to coach Nalin Swaroop!
learnt Swimming
learnt Salsa
re-started Squash

Keep suggesting what more a person should do to be a better person, citizen :-)

Q1 Review

2010-04-02T11:44:00.003+05:30

As 2009 was Travel Year.. I decided 2010 to be the year of improvement. Improvement in living style, enjoying and above all activities :-)
I have set 37 New Year Resolutions (sounds unbelievable ;-) hahaha)
I have tried my best to live up to my expectations (I hope everyone believes living upto self expectation is the toughest thing to achieve)
Now, I want to share my report card, not only because I have passed, but because I think some of it is Good and if I could influence anyone that would be really Good !
So here I go:

Save Water: I have stopped taking bath in shower. As God Sachin asks Mumbaikars to take bath by bucket. And it really saves lot of water. Unnecesarry wastage of water in basin while shaving, brushing teeth etc. helps save lot of water.
Save Electricity: Switching Off Lights whenever not required, Switching Off AC, TV from main power source helps save some electricity at least.
No wastage of paper: I have stopped taking printout as far as possible. Another step was to stop taking water in paper cups provided in office. We require at least 2 litre of water a day. And when we spend at least 7 hours in office everyday we use paper cups so many times and throw it. Rather than this, I am using a sipper for water. This saves paper and also increases water intake.
Activities: (I love to mention these)

Swimming: Started going for Swimming
Salsa: Going Salsa Classes, Learning LA style salsa (Dhanashree is most happy because of this)
Exercise: Increase exercising as compared to last years
IMDb Top 250: I wish to see so many of these great movies. I have watched 85 of them till now !!

Tennis
Squash
Guitar !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know that NY Resolution is a whole year project and I hope I keep improving the Year round.

Cheers to all my friends !

ReCap

2010-01-11T14:54:00.003+05:30

I posted my last blog (excluding the lazy announcement - "am back") in May-2009. Now as I am stepping into blogosphere again I would pen down the last 6-7 months.
June-July were pretty much lazy. I always love Mumbai rains! All relaxed time in office as well. Then by mid July, an opportunity knocked at my doorstep. I was asked if I can go to Tokyo, for 3 months!
Immediate reactions:
+ Tokyo
- 3 months

Even if my wife comes for a month, I have to live alone for almost 2 months. But I got good support and encouragement from her. Finally, I reached Tokyo on 1st August. The whole experience of Japan was awesome. My parents too came for 15 days and we explored almost every corner of Japan on Shinkansen-The Bullet Trains. We went to:
Kyoto, Nara, Nikko, Hakone, Nagoya: Toyota Motor Plant, Kamakura, Hiroshima, Miyajima, and
Disneyland !!!!!!!
[My diary of Japan would be released little later :-) ]

I loved Japan, more because our parents enjoyed there. It was first Foreign trip (in fact first air fly) for my parents. And they truly loved it. More so because what a lovely and friendly country Japan is.
On our way back, we (me and my wife) stayed in Hong-Kong for few days and went to Macau to enjoy the casinos out there.

We came back to India by October end. Since then we are pretty much in Mumbai. Went to Indore for cousin's wedding. Indore is always a lovely foodie place. In fact, Dhanashree landed in Indore at 8PM and at 9 we were in Sarafa-A night time food crazy plaze

Went to Pune for a family function on the long weekend of Christmas. This is first time that we drove all the way to Pune. But it was an amazing drive. The max speed that I reached was 135kmph and it was very comfortable drive in my Maruti Baleno! While coming back we reached at Powai, Mumbai from Kothrud, Pune in less than two and a half hours...

New Years party was cool! Friends came at our place and we played and had fun. Now waiting for 27th January - Our Second Anniversary !!

For 2010: I have made many resolutions..Hopefully would keep them all..
: Going for desert Safari @ Jaisalmer in Feb end.
: Planning a trip of North with friends from Hyderabad.
: Started twittering (or we call it twitting?)

That begins my blogging in 2010 ____-----------^^^^^

Am Back !!

2009-11-26T12:59:00.002+05:30

After a long break I am back to Blogging !!

I am happy to share that I have spent lot time in traveling lately. I have been in Japan for 3 months, then a week in Hong Kong.. Visited Delhi... Will share all here !!!

Cheers

A new Blogger on the block

2009-05-14T11:43:00.001+05:30

I welcome my wife to the world of blogging !!
http://eka-manachi-goshta.blogspot.com/ : Start is good, hope she continues with it.
Title of the blog is Me_Mazee.

Yun hota toh kya hota..

2009-05-05T11:23:00.004+05:30

I was born on 2nd April 1982 that was the happiest day for my parents! Ever since then, their first priority is always Me. They did their best to send me to best possible school in Indore, provide me everything required to prepare for IIT-JEE. All this without letting me know the pain of earning a single penny.

That’s the case with so many of us. Our parents take all the pain to provide best upbringing. And when we grow old we fell in the same cycle. We go out to earn and in a way there is actually a very small percentage of our life we spend with our parents, with our wife and with our kids for whom we get so busy to give them best nurturing.

I think our social structure is quite imbalance. It expects a lot during one time and leave free on the other. Why we have to work and set our career along with taking care of family at the same time? In the end most of us crib to compromise career for our family or not getting enough time for family.

Since I am born till 25 years of age, I spend for education, my parents taking care of me. From 25 to 40, I spend only on career. I shall work as hard as possible, doing as much as I can in these 15 years. And in a way this will improve my productivity as I know I have to work for these 15 years only! At 40, I get married and start my family. So if I live till 65-70 I will spend all the time with my wife and kids. I will never crib for not having time for my family. And no problem financially because I (and my spouse equally) have spent last 15 years building my career and earning. And in a way I get time for myself, my family i.e. my parents, wife, kids and friends.

Shouldn’t this be better?

My Love for Hyderabad

2009-04-27T16:04:00.002+05:30

My Love for Hyderabad is further supported by the fact that I am putting all my money on Deccan Chargers for the IPL season-2 !!
I find DC, the most balanced team of this season. They have the likes of Gilchrist and Gibbs as opener, followed by Dwayne Smith and Rohit Sharma!! They have tournament best bowler RP Singh and Fidel Edwards along with magic spin of Pragyan Ojha.
Now the bad news, Fidel Edwards and Dwayne Smith will leave for their country after couple of matches. But no need to worry, Edwards would be replaced by Vaas or Bilakhia (young, tall fast bowler) and Dwayne Smith will be replaced by Andrew Symonds!!
Boy !!! That's one amazing squad...

My Love for my City: Indore

2009-04-20T16:04:00.004+05:30

Adding to my previous blog on Indore, here I bring something more about Indore from my
memory:
Famous Personalities from Indore:

Lata Mangeshkar was born in Indore
Great Singer & Actor Kishor Kumar was a student of Christian College Indore
Famous comedian Jhonny Walker & handsome Salman Khan belong to Indore
Rahul Dravid, C.K. Naidu & Mustaq Ali, the cricket legend of India also belong to Indore
M.F.Hussain and N.S.Bendre famous painters spent some years in Indore
Narendra Hirwani highest wicket taker in single test belongs to Indore

Indore at its best

First City in INDIA to have IIM and IIT
The famous Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM was started first in Indore, then spread to other cities of India.
Indore is nicknamed as Mini Bombay because of similar lifestyles.
First private telephone operator Bharati had entered in INDIA from INDORE only.
40 feet high idol at Bada Ganapati is the largest idol of Lord Ganesh in the world.
Until the early 1990s, Bollywood movies were released on Thursdays in Indore and released elsewhere on Fridays.
The gates of Lalbagh Palace, Indore, are a replica of the gates of Buckingham Palace in London. They were cast in England and then shipped to Indore.

Allah Rakkha...

2009-04-13T11:02:00.004+05:30

It was another amazing journey for me. Late in the evening, after dinner I was in a normal Indian bus, going from Miraj to Mumbai. Incidentally this time we were boarding a non-AC bus, so after a long time I was going to feel the wind around. Though at the time of boarding I was worrying about heat, sound and dust. Like a normal routine it took so many stops before reaching highway. Everytime it stops there were no cribs at all as if everyone is comfortable with these routine stops. The passengers were enthrilled when the conductor Chhotu (I always wonder why a bus conductor is always a small boy named chhotu !!) put on the video player and the action packed movie Jung.
I was forced to take on an only simple MP3 player I have with limited number of songs in it. Slid one window to get more wind inside. Till this time I was being protective of not opening the window to get exhausted of dust etc. I pushed back my sit little bit, as much as it was possible! And then what happened would remain in my feelings forever.
Imagine a journey, only a moonlight with a continous refreshing cool wind. The wind moving the curtain of the bus haphazardly. It bounces my hair as it pass. Passing trees, farms, villages, vehicles outside the window and with all this magician Allah Rakha Rahman!!
Since my MP3 player was a normal one (am not very fond of gadgets) there were very few songs which I selected some days back. And to my surprise all were composed by this great musician!! My playlist had songs from
Jodha Akbar: Inhi lamhon ke daaman mein..., khwaja mere khwaja..., azeem-o-shaan shehenshaah...
Dilli-6: Rehna tu...
Guru: Ae Hairath-e-Ahiqui...and many more
After a long time I got time for music. I love this and thanks to the maestro A.R. Rahman. I believe he got the Oscar for all his work over the years but got 'international' recognition through slumdog.
A.R. Rahman - Jai Ho !!!!

A New Law

2009-04-08T09:33:00.003+05:30

A new law is passed by which any Press Conference, Public meetings, Rallies would be considered holi! All the attendees have to keep their shoes out before entering the holi place. Sources close suggests this is to prevent current incidences when attendees are found showing shoes, sometimes throwing them to the dias.
Critics suggests that attendees should also be asked to tie their mouth with handkerchief or rope. Clearly harm is caused not only by shoes but by words as well.
I wonder in this fashion our parliaments should be totally frisked, even the furniture, carpet and mikes should be removed. It would look like old open-outcry exchanges!!

Recess

2009-04-06T14:57:00.001+05:30

Tan tan tan tan…
That was the most awaited sound for eighty impatient ears sitting in the class. In our school “tiffin-break” was from 1055-1115. And the desperation starts little before 1030. Each minute felt like an hour. One can easily notice repeated turning of wrist to get a glimpse at time. There were few living faces sitting in the front row, which have no option but to listen to the figure teaching them. For rest, it is like a battlefield against time! Nothing left to do as the tiffin is already empty! It is a real fun to hide and sneak-in a bite when teacher turns back to the blackboard. And it is important to finish our lunch during the classes because we don’t want to waste our “Recess” time in eating at least!
Finally the battle ends, actually it’s a battle in which obviously everyday we win in the end! Only excitement is the toughness of it. As soon the bell hits tan tan tan no one waits for the final words of the guru. Ground gets flooded by all size. Within seconds the entire view of the school ground changes, the canteen boys doing their best to handle the peak hour of the business, seniors playing Football, Volley or Basket ball and juniors curiously watching and cheering each and every stunt. There are many small groups mocking teachers, teasing each other. All in all these 20 minutes were full of laughter and fun. The most refreshing time of the day!!
Over the years things changed and changed a lot! What we called Recess shrunk to small “break” in college. Sometimes we enjoyed a “free hour” between lectures to have a coffee or maggi or a smoke may be!
And now the time of Recess is totally lost from our lives. Only time out we take is for lunch, coffee or snacks. But it is lacking the fun and excitement. It is just a routine to follow. To really enjoy a “Recess Break” we have to “plan” beforehand.
It is more difficult to bring friends together from different places for a Recess. Moreover, recess can be linked to Recession more than what it really means.
I still want to hear the sound… tan tan tan tan when all my friends rush out of their offices!! Even though for small time but it would be most cherishing for all of us!!

Salute

2009-04-01T23:09:00.002+05:30

This is my salute to bravery. Accolade for Fighting Spirit and Appraisal for Patience!!
When I read this amazingly written blog of my friend "Untitled", I really appreciated him from the bottom of my heart. He hit his low when he was about to hit his highest. He struggled, faught and finally is again on the verge of hitting his new high. I wish him all the best and lots of Good Wishes for his future !!!!
Here is the blog link again: http://aagarwal8.blogspot.com/2009/04/untitled.html

HomeLogue

2009-03-31T13:14:00.007+05:30

What do you call a blog that writes about a travel experience: Travelogue, so what should we call a blog that writes one's home experience.....

Indore, I will introduce as a 'cute funny city'. People find fun in anything and everything here. My observation for Indorites over the years is that we Indorites are keen on making relations.

If you are travelling alone in Indore train: The Avantika Express, definitely someone will start conversation and your whole journey will pass talking and eating!

If you are first timer to a food joint, there would be plenty of people around to suggest you what to eat and what not to. And giving suggestions is what we are good, rather best at :-) An Indorite can give you suggestion on anything as remote as possible !!

Hair cutting in Indore is not a short thing. First you have to wait for 15-20 minutes at least. And during this time you will get to hear a never ending debate (topics may vary) of free people around. While you are sitting at the hot seat you will get to know every information, from local MLA, water scarcity to the level of Osama's hiding! Election time is main season for Barbers, Panwaalas and Chaaiwaalas.

Now I will tell you a normal schedule of an Indorite. Wake up in the morning normally between 7 to 8AM. Breakfast would be light : Poha and Jalebi !! Then Tea-Biscuit before lunch. Normal Lunch followed by snacks in the evening. That would be Samosa-Kachori at least.

Indore is heaven for Food Lovers. The list is endless but some of which I relish are:

Sarafa (Food Chaupati): Chhole Tikiya, Hot Dog, Garadu, Gulab Jamun, Rabdi, Pattis, Sabudana Khichdi, Makhkhan Bada, Shikanji, Kulfi .. .. .. .. .. .....

(Now there are similar chuapattis in many places in Indore)

Guru Kripa Restaraunt: GuruKripa is a Restaraunt in the heart of Indore. It shows that Indore's heart is very close to its stomach. Its a place with amazing veg food and your bill will never cross Rs. 30-40 per head, without compromising ambience. So thats heaven for every class!!

56 Market: Another Food joint!!

and believe me this list is never ending...

Indore city has well specified markets for all needs. We have cloth market, Bartan bazaar - names suggesting their utilities, khajuri bazaar for books, sarafa for jewellary, Marothia for daily needs.

Their is so much happening in Indore recently. So many malls coming up now. Roads are improving. Construction everywhere! In my recent visit I saw, every other road is blocked for work. But we Indorites never crib. We never make big issues for anything. We dont panick when there is water scarcity, we dont fight when Avantika Express halts for an hour just on the outskirts of Indore! We dont care when our sitting MP for 25 years now is never given an important portfolio in cabinet. We are happy in our life... Eat and Have Fun !!!

IPL in SA

2009-03-25T10:29:00.002+05:30

Remember my earlier article on IPL fighters!!

That same IPL is now NRIPL (Non Resident Indian Premier League). So that leaves Kapil Dev's ICL only Residing Indian Cricket League. Now the biggest irony is IPL is moving out of India because of security issues during elections and it is moving to a place where elections are exactly co-inciding with the IPL schedule. Yes, SA is helding its general elections in April, 2009. Check here. Agreed that elections in India is much much bigger issue, being the worlds largest democracy! But still for that we have more security personnel, much much bigger force. Seems like this was one more reason for chosing SA :-)

Formula-1 (Introduction)

2009-03-23T12:36:00.004+05:30

Over the span of couple of years I have added many of my friends to the fan-list of world's most thrilling, exciting and fastest sport: Formula-1. Now I want to add more to the sport I love the most (being an Indian it’s a surprise that I like F-1 more than Cricket!) I came across so many friends who like to watch race but because of unaware of rules and pattern one tends to loose interest. I would take you to a ride of F-1 starting from basics to more technicalities and to some amazing facts to develop more interest.

2009 championship:

There will be 17 races in this season; first race race is on 29th March at Australia.
There are 10 teams; each team puts 2 drivers for the race.
Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Toyota, Toro Rosso, Renault, Red Bull, Brawn, BMW Sauber, Force India are the teams.
A Race weekend includes 2 practice sessions on Friday, One practice session on Saturday and a Qualifying round. Race takes place on Sunday.
Practice sessions is for the driver to get accustomed to the circuit, conditions, try their tyres etc.

Qualifying takes place in 3 phases: Q1,Q2 and Q3.

In the first qualifying session all cars run in the allocated time of normally 15-20 minutes. Best 16 cars qualify for the second qualifying whereas rest of the cars start from the grid at last (in order of the time they clocked in first qualifying)
In the second qualifying 16 cars run trying to come in top 10 to qualify for Q2. Last 6 cars are placed according to their times.
In the last qualifying session final grid for the race is decided. Driver who gets best time starts from the front or what is called pole position.
Cars cant refuel after the qualifying till the race. This is an important strategy point for the teams to fuel their car accordingly. If they fuel light and get pole position then they have a trade off as they have to pit early for filling fuel early in the race.

Raceday

Cars start from their position.
They have to take a pit stop to fill fuel and change tyres.
Winner gets 10 points and then the order is 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point for the eighth position.
At the end of season, i.e. after all 17 races are completed, Champion is decided on the basis of maximum points.

Plan ahead...

2009-03-22T11:17:00.000+05:30

We(me and my wife Dhanashree)have started our photo blog:
http://dhanashreepuneet.blogspot.com/
We'll daily present few pictures taken by us.

This week would be Formula-1 special with the season's first race just a week away. I will try and explain the game for the beginners, thrills involved and rules for those who want to know about the game.

After that a week long holiday. Will update on that amazing break very soon.

Cricket Teams need a Mathematics Coach

2009-03-21T18:46:00.000+05:30

Its not far that Cricket teams demand for a Mathematics coach because of the complicated Duckworth-Lewis calculations. With so many miscalculations leading to blunder recently, we could very well have a D/L expert in the team! This is in view of last ODI between England and West Indies when Windies lost by 1 run when their coach miscalculated to believe they won by 1 run and agreed to call off the match when getting dark. If known he could have asked to play few more balls to meet the D/L requirement.
In that way we can also see few teams asking for awareness coach. Remember, Inzy un-aware of T-20 ball out rule :-)

India Abroad Person of the Year

2009-03-21T13:38:00.000+05:30

And the India Abroad Person of the Year award goes to - Mr. Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post American World. The award is given by the weekly newspaper India Abroad – owned by Rediff since 2001. This award is given to recognised names in various fields since 2002. Previous winners of this awards were:

2007 Mira Nayar

Film maker
Born in Rourkela, Orissa on 15^th October 1957
Famous movies: Salaam Bombay, Kamasutra-A Tale of Love, Monsoon Wedding, Namesake etc.

2006 Indira Nooyi,

CEO, Pepsico since August 2006
Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on 28^th October 1955

2005 Bobby Jindal

Born on 10^th June 1971 in Loouisiana
Member of the U.S. House of Representative

2004 Mohini Bhardwaj

Retired Gymnast
Born on 29^th September 1978 in Philadelphia

2003 Sonal Shah

American Economist
Born on 20^th May 1968 in Mumbai

2002 Swati Dandekar

Born 6^th March 1981 at Nagpur, Maharashtra
Iowa State Senator

He returned to finish his dinner!

2009-03-16T22:10:00.000+05:30

“Soon after 26/11 terror strike he left his Taj dinner mid-way to save his life. The CEO of Unilever Group, Paul Polman was back in the city once again on Friday, the 13th.”

When I read this news, a natural smile came on my face. That should be the spirit, to keep the ghosts of the past behind and look into the future. Here is the whole news.

IPL – the Fighters

2009-03-16T12:15:00.000+05:30

IPL guys must be really appreciated for their spirit of fighting. For they never miss the opportunity, rather sometimes create an opportunity for a tussle. This time it is fighting hard with home ministry to schedule its matches in the month with National elections. I even came across debates where a side argues that elections should be postponed as IPL dates were announced earlier. Is IPL above national elections today? Rather it was quite expected that elections would be held sometime in April, May of June because of which UPA was asked to present an interim budget. Now, even after aware of the expected election dates IPL schedule was launched with matches an April and May. This might be surprising but actually it is not. If not now ICC won’t provide window to IPL before Nov-Dec ’09. So our multi-million dollar business IPL is finding hard to reschedule. After all there’s so much money involved. It’s bigger than Cricket itself!

As BCCI is striving hard for its new schedule they haven’t forgotten their enemy ICL. First they dint allowed Indian players to play with domestic NZ team as NZ domestic cricket have players like Hamish Marshall who play in ICL. Now, they are opposing presence of Craig McMillan at commentary box. NZ has already lost their ace bowler Shane Bond because of this IPL-ICL rift. To be true, T20 tournament is brainchild of Zee with Kapil Dev. BCCI copied the idea and executed it big, with the fat cash its sitting on. Still the reason for banning ICL is unclear to me. Does BCCI have sole right to mint money from cricket in India? Very soon we"ll see BCCI taking over local tennis ball cricket tournaments as well :-)

As I complete writing this, now I am seeing the news of another fight of IPL. This time with broadcaster Sony!!

Its Half Year Now!!

2009-03-15T11:52:00.000+05:30

15th March, 2009.. Guess what is the importance of this day?

Its 6 months from the event that triggered Global Financial turmoil. It’s the day 6 months back when Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy. It was the doomsday for Lehman employees.

Things have changed, mostly for good of Lehman people. But these 6 months were the most uncertain time of our life. In due course of time Barclay’s over Lehman Brothers, North America and Nomura took over its Asia-Pacific and Europe business. Since then we have seen speeding business integration between Nomura and ex-Lehman. Resource allocation and re-allocation etc.

But these 6 months gave us the best teaching of life: Patience! There was so much happening around. World was on a roller coaster ride and we were at the pinnacle. From the day Lehman filed bankruptcy all of us flooded our resumes in the market. Can you imagine bunch of IITans going for walk-in interviews? Sometimes these walk-ins were too unprofessional to take place at local bar! But that’s life. With the support of same positioned colleagues many of us stood strong and fortunately (and hopefully) are now better placed than our counterparts elsewhere. It was great on part of our friends, family and contacts in other companies to constantly support us. In all, these 6 months were most important time of my life! It actually brought a lot of visible and non-visible change in me.

Thanks to all my friends, colleagues and family members!!

Trade Unions for IT in India?

2009-03-12T14:00:00.000+05:30

Is it the high time that millions of IT professionals need a Trade Union? With the current economic downturn and US President Barrack Obama’s protectionist policies many IT professionals are expected to lose job. So is there really a need for the IT work force to unite under a union? Well political parties are demanding in West Bengal and Kerala for a long time now. Let’s first see why Trade Unions are required in the first place.

To demand for minimum wages as under labour laws,
Safer and better working condition,
To prevent any discrimination based on gender, cast, race etc.
Maternity benefits to women,
Fixed timings, if on night shift one should get extra benefit, and so on.

Now the point is that, IT employees (though some may not agree) are paid much better than minimum wages defined under labour law. Also work condition is much better as compared to a textile mill or a mine. Now anyone who joins IT industry knows very well how volatile job market is. And this volatility is high because of high frequency of job change seen amongst IT employees and in some cases hiring and firing by the company. But this is the price paid for the benefits and perk the employee gets.

Leftists are demanding trade unions in IT sector since long citing instances when employees have to work in between 10 to 14 hours (Read here). Recently Communist party in Kerala has opposed lay off by an IT company. Here is the article by a famous Kerala newspaper, Mathrubhoomi.

It might sound unreasonable for the white collar jobs to be a member of a union but such trade unions already exist and are now all the more active in Europe. There was a big protest against layoffs by HP in Europe sometime back (link). Protection of jobs, unionization can be the plusses but strikes, political interference in promotion, regular workings, project comes with the package.

News 24X7

2009-03-12T13:08:00.001+05:30

One of the most important and essential part of my routine is reading newspaper every morning. If I dont read each and every page of ToI, Economic Times and BT, I dont feel complete. And its with every newspaper, whether I read ToI or IE or anything. Then I come to office and read each and every blog on economy, finance and politics. In my quest to find out why I am so eager to get to know news, I was just wondering how much of this news is actually relevant to me?

So I just started turning pages to see which news matters to me. So that from now on I will just brush through these pages and save time (though there is no need of saving time these days :) ) Front page is obviously important, you can not overlook it anyways. Thats the reason some of the tabloids show tha masala news on the cover page! Amongst the inside pages, obviously news of my city is important, National Politics do affect me and I am really curious to know whats going on globally, so natural to stop at these pages. I should also know the views of experts so Editorial page is utmost important. Then comes my favourite Business and Sports page, since they are favourite so can't even think of skipping them even when there is no Formula-1 Race or a Cricket match is played. So... that means I cant skip a single page. I am so news hungry!!

I wonder why people cry at 24 hours news channel. Just imagine what would be the condition if you get news only once a day, like earlier on DoorDarshan. Is that really enough. Things change so fast. There is so much happening around the world. Agree, that 24 hour media is covering some crap to very crap issues as well. But can't blame them, at least they are covering all the important news and when there is no news they are bound to show masala news to keep their channels running. When there's no news, they can't just stop airing till there is any news. Isn't it true that getting ignorant of so many global issues by sticking to one news a day is worse than having 24X7 media that can show all the issues and in no-news time air its crap. You are not bound to watch it all the time anyways.

Mumbai-76

2009-03-09T22:44:00.000+05:30

(in the tone of Dilliii 6)
Basti hai mastano ki Mumbaiii
Gali hai deewano ki Mumbaiii - 76

Mumbai-76 is the place I landed in July 2001. It starts after L&T when the beautiful Powai Lake starts.
At the end of the semicircular necklace is the premier IIT Bombay, some prefer to call it IIT Powai or IIT Pawai!! But the lake is not the only thing that captures attention. To the other side is series of skyscrapers.. I will come to it later though.
Most remarkable thing at Mumbai-76 or Powai is IIT!! IIT has a huge campus of 5 acres. It has Powai Lake at the left (if you are facing main gate) and Vihaar Lake at the back, with a small hill on one side. Its amazingly green, clean and best place in Mumbai to have an institute of this stature. Opposite to IIT is a small market. It had some legendary places earlier (remember SP, Manoj tea stall, Laxmi etc. ?) but as the road widening is utmost important because of heavy traffic these legends are removed or rehabilated elsewhere. One restaurant of Historical Importance (especially for IITB alumni) is our very own - Maddu Mess.. Its a very small restaurant, sorry its a very small kitchen. Where aunty makes amazing dosa, innovative egg-dosa, dal-bada with coffee. USP of this place, it opens at 5 in the morning!! And whether its weekday or weekend, there is a waiting of at least 15-20 minutes.

Now comes the other part of Powai. The exotic Hiranandani!! Its so unlike Mumbai and for the first timers, its so unlike India. When I saw this first I was amazed. Cemented Roads, Sky scrapers, Superb buildings, cleanliness and Gigantic structures makes it ecstatic. It has place for everyone. Galleria is a complex where you can find all kinds of shop, all kind of restaraunt. You can actually get everything here. Be it Dominoes or Karims, Mochas or Yokos or a normal Foodcourt for every kind of food. Just opposite to Galleria is Rodas - the ecotel hotel. And ahead of it you have Go-karting track!! So you can get everything at Powai. Life is happening. You name and its here. And it is developing so fast, every few months you see another giant standing. Now I heard there are 2 multiplex coming in vicinity. There is so much to write, as there is everything. You can see Hiranandani in so many movies, to name a few, Ghajini, Kalyug, Shakti, Slumdog Millionaire and the list goes on.

For Shopping you have Galleria, D-Mart, Haiko, HN market.
For Food there is Mainland China, China Valley, Saffron Spice, Mantras, Utsav.
For Pizzas there is Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Smokin Joes, Papa Johns.
For Ice creams there is Naturals, Hockey Pockey.
For coffee and hookah we have 2 CCDs, Mochas, Kasbah.
Amongst others there are numerous vendors in the market and still the place is spacious. There are numerous offices, BPOs but still there is no crowding that you find anywhere else in Mumbai.

My reason for expressing my Love for Powai is because during my college days I have never thought of staying at Hiranandani.
But fortunately my office is at Hiranandani, a km from my home !!My Love with Mumbai - 76 continues.. and its incomparable to Delhi - 6 or Indore - 3 :-)

Travelogue: Ratnagiri-Ganapati Pule!!!

2009-02-24T13:00:00.000+05:30

When I went to Ratnagiri-Ganapati Pule for the first time I immediately made plans for a second visit. So beautiful is the place that you cant stop visiting it. First time I want to Ratnagiri with my wife and aai-baba on first weekend of the year for the function of our cousin Parikshit dada's new born son 'Janmejay'. Ratnagiri is well known for superb quality Alphonso Mangoes. GanapatiPule is some 40-45 kms from Ratnagiri. It is well known for a Ganapati temple. A hill is considered as Lord Ganesha. Pradikshina of 1km is around the hill just opposite to a beautiful, clean beach. There is an amazing MTDC resort just opposite to the temple. There is a real life size museum called Prachin Kokan just 1 km from the resort. I must say this is the best place to be with friends or family. I was so much amazed by the place that we planned to come here again with mummy-papa, didi-jijaji and kids. And luck favored, the plan went as planned (And that was a back to back plan, we came from a week long Kokan-Darshan just 4 days back). Its better if I mention people about the plan as this could be best travel plan near Bombay/Pune that takes just 2 days.
1) Leave Bombay Friday Night by Konkan-Kanya Express
2) Reach Ratnagiri at 5 AM
3) Ratnagiri to GPule:
option1) take a Rickshaw @350/3-4 persons
option2) take ST bus that takes not more than an hour and a half
option3) take a cab @700/6-7 persons
4) GPule: Book MTDC resort for Saturday, must say should book Konkani Huts. These are beautiful cottages decorated by Bamboos. All the rooms are sea facing.
5) Prachin Konkan: The life size museum that showcase the style of living of old Kokan village.
6) Enjoy evening at the lovely beach
7) Leave Resort and Book a cab for sight seeing in and around Ratnagiri
8) Cab drops you to Ratnagiri station at 5PM, you get Janshatabdi @5:30 PM
9) By 10:30PM you reach Mumbai.

Travelogue: Hyderabad !!!!

2009-02-24T12:52:00.000+05:30

There was not a single city I liked a lot after being in Mumbai for 8 years. Just to mention I went to Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pondicherry, Ratnagiri, Pune, Kolhapur in last couple of years. But either I dint liked the city at all (namely Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi) or I liked the city for once but could not think even of settling (namely Delhi, Pune, Ratnagiri) or I have no view at all (Kolhapur, Puducherry)

After a planning and ditching several times for visiting Hyderabad, as we have some of our wonderful relatives and best friends in Hyderabad, we finally decided to make a 3 day visit to the city. Before going to Hyderabad I was excited about few things: Biryani, Relatives and Friends. Dint have any expectation at all for the city as I knew I had very bad experience with South Indian cities. Couple of days before some of my Hyderabadi friends gave me a must visit, must do and must eat list. I was amazed to know that there is so much to do in Hyderabad!

We started our journey from Mumbai airport at 5AM on 21st Feb and reached Hyderabad by 6. Hyderabad Airport is 25km out of the city. But, But.. is it an Airport? Its a 5* hotel cum commercial complex cum 5* Mall and an Airport !! I think Hyderabad Airport should be in the must visit list even for people who are traveling by train should take a visit to airport once :-). Its awesome. Since its February, mornings are little cold. And from here I began enjoying Hyderabad. Our aatya and her two lovely daughters Chaitrali and Tanmayi came to pick us up (35km from their home at Secundarabad and 6 in the morning). In 45-50 min we reached their home behind Anand theatre, Secundrabad. On our way we saw so many restaraunts, malls, shopping complexes and good roads.

Now begins our first day of toursim in Hyderabad. We inaugrated it with the famous Charminaar.
From our school days we study one thing in our General Knowledge classes for sure: Where is Charminaar? Ans. Hyderabad. Charminaar gives a view of old Hyderabad. With a huge market surrounding. You can find here hawkers, stalls, petty traders, shops of shoes, sherwanis, bangles, more bangles and yet more bangles. Then we went for routine shopping to Begum Bazaar. After some jewellary shopping we went for lunch. There are unbelievable number of options for food in Hyderabad. After heavy lunch at a roof top restaraunt we went to meet our friends in High Tech city, almost the other corner of Hyderabad. Here I got chance to interact with local people, the autowallas, the passer bys to ask for direction sometimes when we miss our friend who was leading us ahead in a bike. Here I realised Hyderabad is so easy to live. There is no language problem unlike Pune, Bangalore and Chennai. People talk easily in Hindi, Hyderabadi Hindi.
We met our best friends Shobhit-Malabika and Dhammo. Its always fun to be with friends like them. We went to Shilpa Ramam, an exhibition place like Pragati Maidaan. With Shobhit-Malabika, Dhammo and Surbhi, its fun to be anywhere :-)

After dinner and night walk on city centre road our day ended. No wait our day ended after a wonderful Pan. Hyderabadi Pan is awesome, No one can eat just One..

Next day was specially reserved for Biryaani. We went to the most famous Biryaani Restaurant-Paradise. They say that it started in 1953 as a Tea Stall. And now its an industry on its own. Its a full fledged 4 storeyed building. And the food is awesomee... I dont have words to describe the food, the smell of Hyderabadi food.

And the waiters are so wi-fied, they take orders on PDA and the message goes to corresponding kitchen by wi-fi. Now, will you believe that. Thats not even in 5 stars of Mumbai. After a heavy lunch, theres no possibility of sight seeing at that time.
So we went to our relatives place and after a brief meeting we went for shopping!! Now how crazy is that we are almost full to our mouth and we are shopping. Only because theres so much to do and so many places to go. In the evening we went to Lumbini Park for the very famour Laser Show. It was the most amazing laser and fountain show I have ever seen. Even the Laser show in Techfest of IITB is not this good. I am in love with Hyderbadi songs:

RimJhim RimJhim Haiiderabad

I city, YOU city, Our City welcome to Haiiderabad !!

Then we went for evening boat ride on Hussain Sagar to Buddha Statue standing in between of the lake. Then we went for Hyderabadi Chaat followed by 10:30 PM movie show of - Delhi6. We reached home by 2 and so decided to put the next day for chill out only.

So our third day begin and chill out doesn't mean that we"ll be at home. Chill out means we wont go to RamojiRao film city but would go for more peaceful Salar-e-Jung museum. It showcase the Nawabi life of Nizaams. And really, how lavishly they lived. Theres a musical clock where every hour a puppet-man comes out and hit the drum as many number of times as number of hours. This clock is so old and its still working! We saw Nawab's swords, armours, clothes, lifestyle stuff, ivory stuff and so much more. Wish I was a Nawab!

Then we took our lunch at another famous restaraunt: Angeethi. That was almost time for our return. After couple of hours relaxation, playing Risk, Scrabble it was time we leave.

As I said I never liked any Indian City after Mumbai. I Loved Hyderabad. This is one city I am sure I will visit again and may be many times. There are various reasons (all equal):

Hyderabad is slow (suits my lazy nature :-) )

No Language Problem, Hindi is as accepted as Telugu (rather more) and Urdu

Amazing Food

Amazing Relatives

Amazing Friends

Amazing places to go

Its Happening, theres everything you need to enjoy in Hyderabad.

I love Hyderabad!!

Ram Sena

2009-02-18T12:01:00.000+05:30

Everyone knows of moral policing that 'anti'-social organisations are doing in India. Ram Sena is doing exactly what their contemporary are doing in Maharashtra for so long. This time self proclaimed protectors of Indian culture have attacked women going pubs in Mangalore. First of all my question is who allows them to govern Indian culture and secondly which part of Indian 'culture' and 'tradition' lets its followers attack women. For all the years I have always known that Indian culture asks us to respect women. A true Indian would never attack a women. Everyone knows why Great Bhishma Pitamah died as he refused to raise his hands to attack shikhandi-a woman. So how come Sri Ram Sena warriors getting cues to attack women.

First of all, any culture and tradition is not a set guideline. Its a self evolving, never ending process. Every culture gets rich by growing. By learning goods from other cultures and rejecting bad from its own existing cultures. We know, our Indian culture is rich because it has gained so much from Mughals, British and from diversities in our own. In due course of time we have done our best to leave behind evils like child marriage, sati and other atrocities to women. Women in India enjoy their independence more than before and still there is more to happen as compared to western world. Today, we see higher percentage of girls in schools, colleges and offices. There is so much done for men-women equality in India. With all this developments shouldn't women be allowed to enjoy the same lifestyle as man?

Our politicians, CM of Rajasthan, Mr. Kailash Vijayvargiya-minister from MP supports this agenda of anti-pub culture. But why the anti-pub culture protestors attack women specially? Continuing their in-human activities they protested against Valentine day. V-day protest is anyways not new to us. Our great Hindutva Sena is doing this for so long in Mumbai and Maharashtra. What I mean to say is this organisations are not protecting cultures but they are favoring our long lost evils in the culture. They are male chauvinist against the freedom of women.

There is so much to do for our culture. Still we are not completely evolved from the evils of past. Why dont such organisations put their energies in more useful and fruitful activities rather than being destructive? It will help to enrich our culture!

Ranji Final

2009-01-14T10:22:00.000+05:30

At some point or the other we have cribbed that India is such a big country, why can't we select 11 or 14 Good Cricketer out of Crores. But how many of us actually follow domestic cricket? How many of us tell the pattern of Ranji Trophy, Deodhar Trophy, Duleep Trophy or Irani Trophy? Leave the pattern, do we even know who is the current champion? or whats the status of current championship? If Yes, then its really great....

I was too excited about this year Ranji trophy, mostly during and more after semi finals. This might be because aamchi Mumbai is in Finals once again..

So, here is the glimpse of Final (day 3 in progress as I write this) between 37 times champion Mumbai and underdogs Uttar Pradesh, being played at Hyderabad. Mumbai defeated Saurashtra in thrilling semi-final and UP defeated strong Tamil Nadu in semis. Just to give an idea that Ranji matches are interesting: Decision for Mumbai Vs Saurashtra came in favour of Mumbai just half an hour before the scheduled end.

Before the start of the final, Mumbai were clear strong team, with likes of Wasim Jaffer (skipper), Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma to bat and Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Sairaj Bahutule and Romesh Powar to bowl. But Mumbai were down to 55 for 4 with Jaffer out on 1 and Sachin out on duck. This is Sachin's first duck in domestic cricket. With some brave batting of Rohit Sharma (141) and Abhishek Nayar (99), Mumbai made 402 in first innings. Bhuvneshwar Kumar took 5 and RP Singh took 3 wiskets, while Praveen Kumar and Piyush Chawla went wicketless for UP. UP innings is on and they are 119 for 3 losing Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif (the skipper). Whichever way the match goes but I am enjoying and developing interest in India's domestic cricket and Ranji!

Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-12T23:22:00.000+05:30

A: Its Okay
B: Its Good
C: Very Good
D: Amazing

What a movie is this!! Its not more than 5minutes I have finished watching the movie and I start pen down what I am feeling right now. When I watched 'City of Gods' or 'Amorres Perros', I used to think, cant we have such movies in India. And here it is, look and feel of the movie is mostly like 'City of Gods' or 'The Kite Runner'. The idea of showing a real life story of a slum dweller through a realty show 'kaun banega crorepati' is simply superb. It rightly got the Golden Globe award for best screenplay. It shows that best knowledge you get is through life and that's how the protaganist gets all answers to his journey to be millionaire. A well knit love story travels parallely to the entire life story of the slumdog! Music, back ground score is great, story - screenplay is great and acting is The Best. All the child artists have shown the best piece of acting in the movie. All in all, a very very good movie. I don't feel I am capable of giving rating to such movies. I am falling short of stars and praising for the movie..

D: Its Amazing!

Movie Review: Rab ne bana di jodi & Ghajini

2009-01-08T10:50:00.000+05:30

*************************Spoiler ahead*******************************

*************************My views only******************************

I will start with one liners of SRK and Amir before their movies:

SRK: RNBDJ will bring smile to tense Indian (as it released couple of weeks after 26/11)

AK: Ghajini is not Memento

Good to know that both Khan's knew the worth of their movie.

SRK starrer RNBDJ has one thing to describe everything : Shahrukh Khan. Movie does not have number 1 actress, music director (Salim Suleiman), Choreographer (Vaibhavi Merchant) and not the number 1 Director (Aditya Chopra) at present. All it has is Shah Rukh KhaN. SRK as Surinder Sahni has done exactly what SRK has said before, it brings smile to normal Indian. SRK carried this role quite well. He acted like a normal person who luckily gets a more beautiful girl he could have ever expected. His other part, Raj is typical SRK overacting. I give 2* to story, and yes I am convinced by the fact that the wife was not able to recognise her husband in two avtars. In almost all the frames where Tani faces Suri, either she is not looking at her with interest or they are sitting far across the table. So she dont remember, rather dont care to recall his husband when she faces Raj. Another 1* for music and background score. 1* for acting SRK as Suri and -1* as Raj, 1/2* for debutant actress, 1/2* for dance in the movie and -1/2* for the long 15-20 minutes in second half (unnecessary bike scenes etc.). Overall 3.5* for SRK and RNBDJ.

Ghajini is not Memento. In fact it is just a South Indian movie, with South Indian cameraman, actress, director, Villain.. everything. It just needed a north Indian face to be released in Hindi and so it has Amir Khan. All the flashy zug-zug-zug camera movement, bright colours (pink, orange) clothes and cars of Amir in songs, repeated comedy of actress and exaggerated violence. Typical Hindi (or South Indian) movie action in the end when a hero single handedly brings down dozens of large sized villains men. Too much of co-incidence and dramatisation when hero loses his memory after a long time of action exactly when he reaches main villain. In all 1* for story, 1* for acting as there is so little scope for acting of Amir, only anger and anger, love story part is not well knot. 1/2* for debutant actress, -1* for background score. I wonder what A.R. Rahman did, music is good with some good songs but background music is absolutely hap hazard, with techno music anywhere, emotional melodrama somewhere else. -1/2*for over-violence without much story and 15-20 minutes longer second half. Overall 1* for Ghajini.

Koi Mil Gaya

2008-12-07T10:40:00.000+05:30

Every time a movie channel is showing Koi Mil Gaya, my wife looks at me! Why not, she has married an IITan. We are expected to be technologically superman and woman. Getting inspiration from Hrithik and trying to impress my wife, I tried my Communication and Signal Processing skills. I was trying to send signals so that some ‘Jadoo’ will respond to me. I tried and waited till late night thinking there might be time difference and ‘Jadoos’ may not have woken up. After all we always believe the mightier, richer, western world are in a different time zone, they wake up later and sleep later than us. I also wanted to keep trying as it is the only way I can pass my time when my wife was sleeping. All TV channels show terrorist or politics in one way or the other. These days even shows on discovery also seem like politics, after all survival of fittest is the biggest political theory we have. Just when I was losing hope and about to sleep I received a response..

Me: Hello, Hello.. Anybody getting this message?

{I hear some noise like the mis-tuned radio signal, grrrrr.. grrrhhh and then a mute}

Me: Hello, Anyone there?

Just then I received a signal, on my screen it says ‘From Mars’

Mars: Hi

{I got a reply from aliens, and amazing, they talk in English!}

Me: Hi, I am speaking from planet Earth. Who are you? Where are you?

Mars: I am from a planet not far from yours, won’t tell you exactly.

{May be these guys are afraid if they tell me then humans will invade them. What we have left anyways}

Me: How are you? I am too eager to be friends with you.

Mars: Ya, I know. Now a days we are getting so many messages from your planet. Why are there so many people looking for friends outside planet.

Me: May be because here people like each other less.

Mars: How?

{How?, I was thinking he might ask Why? But he asked How? As if disliking is not a possibility at all}

Me: Yes, because people are from different religion so they follow different ideology.

Mars: What is religion?

Me: Following God

Mars: So why do people follow different God

{May be because they follow different ideology, but isn’t it circular then that we have different ideology because we follow different religion and we follow different religion because we follow different ideology…what should I answer, isn’t it hen-egg situation}

Me: Do you have only one God

Mars: We haven’t thought actually.. We just pray to Light when its day and darkness when its night

Me: So don’t you have separate groups who pray light more and other who pray dark more

{God! I am acting like a politician..shi…}

Mars:……

Me: Anyways, how many countries you have?

Mars: Now what is that?

Me: Countries, piece of land separated by boundary

Mars: You really sound interesting; we do have pieces of Land and seas of Lava. But we don’t have boundaries. But tell me in how many different ways you people are divided?

Me: Only religion and boundary, and yes colour as well in some countries

Mars: What? Colour of what?

Me: Skin

Mars: ha? You guys are crazy

Me: Yes, I know.. that’s why people dislike each other here.. ehh.. That now answers your question that we dislike each other..

{Pause}

Me: Hello? Tell me how you guys are distinguishing each other if you don’t have different religion, country, and skin colour?

{what has happened to my thinking? Is dividing in terms of this parameters necessary in first place?}

Mars: Each one is different in his thoughts, emotions and intelligence. Are you all same on these parameters?

Me: No, here also each one is different in his ways. But we haven’t actually found it that important to classify.

{Really pathetic, we hardly care for human emotions, ideas and intellectual these days}

Me: So do you have families? Do you have money? What do you eat?

Mars: We have small groups staying together that we call family. But we don’t mind adding people of other families to come and join us if everyone wants a bigger family. What is money?

Me: To buy something, to buy food, clothes, house? To get these things you must be giving something?

Mars: We don’t need to give something to get these things. We grow what we eat.

Me: That’s interesting {actually sounds impossible to me}

Me (Now coming to the point): Hey, Can you come to our planet to meet me? I want you to meet my wife and friends.

{To prove that I talked to an Alien}

Mars: We can’t come there. Our elders say that if we go to Earth then we’ll get impure. But it is good to know that you have ‘friends’.

Me: Ohh!!

(Pause)

Me: Hello..Hello…

(Pause)

{It seems connection broke}

It was already quite late. Its better I go to sleep now. I anyways have record of this conversation to prove I talked to my Jadoo. On my way to bed, I was thinking of only one thing: It was so difficult to talk to a naïve. It’s so difficult to explain a pure person by heart why there are boundaries, why there are differences, why there is hatred and why human hate human. Why countries war? Why one army kills other. When is this going to end? What if every demand is met? If we make Kashmir independent state, Israel gives Palestine its piece of land, China gives Tibet a status of free nation, LTTE is given part of Sri Lanka they are demanding. Will that end the woes? Will that put an end to Talibans, LeTs, Al-Qaedas, and LTTE? Will that put an end to terror, hatred, fears?

Is there an end?

B for Bombay

2008-12-01T10:08:00.000+05:30

Here I am again for Bombay, which is not only a city, it’s a metaphor for ‘struggle for existence’; synonym for ‘importance of life and time’. Bombay is not a common city, it’s a phenomena. It’s a city of dreams, city that never sleeps; it teaches how important each minute of life is. Bombay is the most important metropolitan city also the commercial capital of India.

Bombay has gained its reputation from the way it has faced calamities for more than a decade now. City was shook on Black Friday in 1993, twin blasts in 2003, blasts in local trains in 2006. Not only the terrorist attacks, city come out strongly after heavy rains in 2005 and many more calamities, natural and from enemies. Every time Bombay rose from the shock the very next day. Every day millions of people travel to Bombay for their job, Business and work. Hence it gets the reputation of the liveliest and one of the most important metros of the country.

Yet again, on 26^th November 28, 2008 terrorist took Bombay (or Mumbai) under siege. This time they was stronger, more planned and more dangerous than ever. Terrorist took control of some most important buildings of posh south Bombay. They took over the famous heritage, most renowned Five stars, The Taj, The Oberoi and Nariman Bhavan as well. They have all the courage to open fire at these spots along with VT (Victoria Terminus or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus), Cama Hospital and at Sir JJ School of Arts. It took a huge troops of Police, army, navy and NSG (National Security Guards) to combat with them. There are so many questions that now rise. There are so many things to note.

1) These terrorist carried some very advanced weapons, AK-47, hand grenades, launchers, RDX etc. They came through sea route and landed at crowded Colaba. Now the question is: How weak our naval patrolling and radar system is such that a boat filled with weapons crosses the border and lands a city place and no one noticed? Pretty tough to believe, but yet it’s True and it happened.

2) They have done it at Bombay earlier in 1993 with aid of Dawood Ibrahim, in 2003 at crowded Zaveri Bazaar, in 2006 multiple blasts in local trains; they have attacked parliament and have attacked almost all major cities across the length and breadth of the country. Is there a safe place left in India? Shall we convert our city into a bigger jail? Check everything, everywhere, every time. This would fear us more. Aren’t we going to doubt every unknown person we see on the street?

3) This time terrorists are more pronounced. They have the audacity to come face to face. Unlike previous times when they were coward to face death, when they just kept the bomb and ran away to kill innocents, this time they faced army, naval commandos and NSG commandos and kept them on toes for two and a half days. Is there any plan ready with government? (I am not calling it current Congress govt. or previous BJP govt.) Has government not learnt with previous terrorist attempts? It seems these questions are not questions, these are facts. There has been no disaster management program. In such cases, what should be our course of action? What should have been the first step? Isn’t it carelessness that NSG commandos entered the site 10 hours after it all started? Shouldn’t all major cities have a unit of NSG commandos? Here, since they came so late they have to rush to the site, mostly uninformed about the inside of Taj or Oberoi or Nariman House. Also, there was no attempt to initiate a discussion with the terrorists. When it was clear that commando operation is getting delayed, terrorists should be tried to keep busy by talking. At least try for one conversation, for what they want? I may sound unreasonable but this could be done via speakers and exchange of words is always useful.

4) What is the point in having local policemen with sticks to protect railway stations? This is not useful even to face a mob throwing stones. How can they try even to fight AK-47s. That means these policemen can be replaced by scare crows. We already have cut-outs (big pictures) of traffic policemen on our express highways to ‘scare’ speeding vehicles. We can have this pictures of policemen at our railway stations, bus stops as well, in any case I have always seen them reading newspaper in between their meals. On a serious note, big stations like VT, Dadar, Andheri etc. should have some armed policemen instead of ‘stick cops’.

5) We should have a media policy. For such long time news channels were telecasting each and every live action. Good that local cable operators cut the cable connections for these places but in any case their lords are getting these feeds live. In turn terrorist were getting all information. So only uninformed people inside the hotels were the hostages, guests who were hiding i.e. the civilians. Media should behave responsibly in telecasting anything live. It would be better if they don’t inform anything to the masses, rather than serving as information media for terrorists.

The open area between Taj and Gateway where these journalists stationed to capture every event was trashed by these people. Can they behave responsible and at least keep the place clean, the least they could have done but no, one can see trash paper, bottles scattered everywhere.

When anyone came for announcements these media persons never let them talk. They just jump on him/them and almost not let them speak. Shouldn’t media be more on the listening side then giving? But the behavior is worth questioning and demanding to have a more stringent media policy. I suggest having a single media team to cover the incidence. This team will be irrespective of news channels, news paper. But any news to be covered should be informed to this team and only that news should be aired.

6) We need a strong management policy for such crisis situation. No politician, minister, VIP or VVIP should be allowed to visit especially during the crisis time. Isn’t it insane that Mr. L.K. Advani, Mr. Jasvant Singh, Mr. Manmohan Singh, Mr. Shivraj Patil etc. visiting this place when security is busy tackling the terrorists? Isn’t it insane to provide these VVIPs security when it is important to protect civilians in the city?

Local people must also understand that it is an unprecedented event. It is so foolish for hundreds of them to reach their with mobile phone cameras, digi cams, to take photographs. Is it a tourist place? Outside Nariman house there was such a big mob that commando Van was not able to move out easily. Shouldn’t police barricade the whole region for everyone?

7) Stop politicizing these issues. Instead of Indian ministers meeting to decide a stringent policy they were busy deciding who to put blame on, who all to fire on account of this to keep government clean. Home Minister Mr. Shivraj Patil nailed down. Here too our PM and super PM played their cards. Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram is awarded Home ministry. Even Chief Minister, Home Minister of Maharashtra might be sacked. But is it really time to play political cards. To play blame game? Are our politicians taking this as an opportunity to achieve their political will?

Terrorists succeeded in what they wanted. They created terror; Mumbai came to stand still for almost two days. School, colleges, offices, malls, cinema halls were closed. Stock market was shut for a day, investors losing crores. Very sad to note that Indian Hotel Group stock price fell by more than 16%. Even after the entire massacre, speech of our PM to nation was not as strong and pronounced as it should be. When it is evident that this involves terrorists from Pakistan occupied Kashmir why don’t we take a strong action. What if this attack was on US of A.? They would have invaded the entire region. Can’t we send a strong message to Pakistan? Why is our government appeasing Muslims and so soft on terror? Why is Afzal Guru not sentenced to death? There are many questions but it seems government and opposition is tackling issues keeping in view of upcoming elections. Till when we will keep quiet. Till when we”ll show our protest by SMS, messenger and orkut status, mails only. We, the people have to do something!

Re-Exploring Bombay

2008-11-24T10:08:00.000+05:30

Exactly a week after I explored and strengthened my love for Bombay, I got chance to visit SoBo (South Bombay) a very different way though this time. I went with my family in our car, unlike last time when I was all alone, walking down the streets. Luckily we got parking opposite to Ambassador hotel, a stone throw from marine drive. Throughout our way, we drove at our best to catch sunset and we reached bang on time. Breeze from Arabian Sea refreshes our mind and body. I love when I face the sea and my hairs fly with the wind.
Marine drive is simply amazing. Necklace stretches from Nariman Point to Chawpatty. Though the view ends at Governor of Maharashtra's bunglow at the tip of the curve. Marine drive posses so many buildings facing the sea. There are Five Stars, Government buildings, stadium with flood lights popping up, guest houses, hostels but my eyes stuck at a very small, cute looking street corner restaurant-Jazz by the bay! Its a small restro-bar, all sea facing seats, good country music, dim lights and amazing food. After lovely food we took our our car and start rolling towards Gateway of India, my wife was Ahhhhed on seeing The Taj!! We roamed around for some more time and with a promise of visiting again we left for our home.

Exploring Bombay

2008-11-21T17:02:00.000+05:30

On 16^th November 2008, I got time and luck to roam about my favorite place in Bombay-The South Bombay. I had three full hours with me starting from KC College, Dinshaw-Wachha Road, Churchgate at 1030AM that Sunday.

I have couple of options to spend these three hours. One, I thought to take a journey through Mumbai Local. I have planned to take a return ticket to Virar from Churchgate to enjoy the local train on Sunday morning, which is the only time one can find local ‘enjoyable’. But the other option was more enticing. I thought of roaming around the real Bombay all alone, all by myself, without knowing, without asking for direction from anyone.

So the journey begins. There was a book shop – Oxford bookstore, just next to KC College. Being a book lover I couldn’t resist the temptation and the air conditioned shop welcomed me. I recognized couple of faces who came to the shop to ‘kill’ these three hours. After relaxing for 10-15 minutes, enjoying the smell of the books and AC, I realized that am not here to waste time. Why to waste time here at bookstore when there is so much to explore today.

I rushed out of the store and straightaway went to oval maidan. It’s a huge rectangular ground. Very interesting to see there were more than 38 cricket matches played by local boys. Some wickets were so close, I wonder what an amazing concentration needed by the batsman to trace his bowler come out of hundreds of fielders of different match and fielder to identify his green colored tennis ball amongst dozens of balls flying in all direction. But amazingly this is the Bombay which gave great cricketers like Sachin. Just opposite to the ground there was a line of sugar cane juice stalls all of them busy making juice for the budding cricketers. Sugarcane juice is very refreshing. Especially during Indian summer and October heat of Bombay freshly prepared cane juice adds best to energy.

Ahead of this, I walked through the streets that has so many banks; Standard Chartered, UCO Bank, Dena Bank. These streets which see hundreds and thousands of faces in week days is completely empty now. These broad empty roads become the best place to play cricket by the teams who dint get place at the oval maidan. For once, I was surprised to see these roads barren, is this due to current financial market condition or is it because of the weekend. I enjoyed watching ‘gully cricket’ after a long time and that too in Bombay!

Just at the side of the street was a cute, small, old park holding an exhibition from Prithvi theatre in memory of ‘Satyadev Dubey’. I just strolled in the park for some time. As it was the last day of the exhibition, everything was wrapping up there. I read few pamphlets and exited in hope of exploring more. And very soon I reached in front of Bombay Stock Exchange. A smile came on my face on seeing the bull outside the stock exchange. Carrying smile on my face, I proceeded.

After few minutes walk, there were many buses lined up with so many wondering eyes. People were staring at each and every building around. This place is ‘Jehangir Arts Gallery’, the famous art gallery and a dream of budding painters to host a gallery of their masterpieces some day. And hence this is one of the favorite spot, along with Bachchans home at Juhu and Mannat at Bandra, for Bombay Darshan. Visitors were properly dressed for the Bombay trip. And why not, Bombay is dream city for millions and millions. Small distance from the art gallery is famous, historic Gateway of India opposite to legendry Taj Hotel. When I was kid I used to think this is Amitabh Bachchan’s hotel, till now I don’t know if this is true. Gateway of India was built in 1911 and it is said that last British troop to leave India passed through Gateway in 1948. Today, everyday more number of people comes to visit Gateway than those might have came to bid adieu to British troop.

I got too tired walking all the way without eating, drinking anything. So I decided to walk back. On my way back was Mantralay, BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India). The site of ally with hawkers makes the walk enjoying and makes easy to cover the distance.

After the day, I began to love Bombay more. More than ever!!

Note that I knowingly used Bombay instead of Mumbai because that’s what I feel describes South Bombay as it is. It is Bombay, famous, historic, lovely, dreamy city of Bombay.

Experiment on Life

2008-11-05T11:55:00.000+05:30

I still remember when my friend Animesh bought a cute, small pomerian dog, we named her Anny. We were quite young then. I think we were in 5th standard. I remember it because that was our board year, as M.P. Board used to take board exams for 5th class way back in 1992-93. We used to play with Anny a lot. I and Animesh used to go school by cycle. I remember Anny used to run behind us for quite some distance and then return back to home. Happiest moment for Anny was the time when we come back from school. In the evening when we play cricket, Anny was our fielder. She used to fetch the ball for us whenever any of us hit the ball for long. We never felt a need of third friend. The only sad time for her, rather for all three of us, was when we had to study.
Time passed and we began to realize that Anny is just a pet. We started getting bore, playing with her all time. At that time we tried a cruel experiment on her. Though, we really didn't ever realize that the experiment was 'cruel', actually we never realized this was an experiment. We were making our pet follow a 'routine', which we thought is a process of making it more 'disciplined'. We made a strict routine for her. We make her wake up early, taught her to clean the place where she slept (we called her den) with a cloth, get ready for a walk in the morning, collect all our tennis-balls we used to play cricket with and that too before we come from school. Above all we tied her with a rope and make sure that we only open it whenever we want. Though the rope was long enough so that Anny can move around freely only in the garden it is tied. We used to free her very few times, mainly on weekends.
Time passed, we grew old and Anny too. By the time we passed our schooling we made sure that she followed the routine we set few years ago. I and Animesh completed our engineering together. We stopped giving any attention to the poor pet. Then luckily we both got into a good college for Management in US of A. So we had to leave our country for at least 2 years. We were happy that we friends are still together.
After a long time we came to India for a fortnight. I went to Animesh's place, which is now at a distance from us as we have moved to a new home in the suburb. I was so excited to meet Anny this time. When I reached his place, I was so sad to see that Anny has grown old and weak. Animesh's parents have untied her after we left, so she was free to move around. We observed it for quite some time. Anny grew so old to even recognize us. We were so surprised that she still religiously follows the routine we have set for her years ago. She still moves inside the territory we have set for her, though now she is free to move inside the house, garden, and porch. She still cleans as we taught her to clean our place and still looks around for tennis-balls that Animesh's small brother sometimes throws.
I was in deep pain to see this. I now realized how cruel experiment we did on the poor life. We were cruel on Anny to take her independence, her freedom, her life. And now even when she is gifted her freedom, she is afraid of it. We tried our best to bring Anny inside the house, to take her out but she got so scared. She was happy in her own place, as if prepared for the last day. But deep inside, we were ashamed of ourselves. Ourselves for what we did to the poor being…
Isn't it a part of our society or so called modern society? The whole story can be compared to part of contemporary India. In many part of the country, married women are forced to follow a routine. Even now, as we talk of women liberalization, there are woman in our society oppressed by their man. This was prominent in generation above us. Now when these ladies see the modern world of our times they are afraid to gain their freedom. Some have tried and succeeded; others still clean their den, accept their legs tied to the rope, and follow the routine and religiously waiting for the experiment on their life to get over some day! I only want to raise this question: Women are not an animal, why can't they raise voice against the atrocities, injustice. I just hope whatever women of last generation has suffered, may not be experienced by women today.

Enough@26?

2008-10-13T23:30:00.000+05:30

Enough@26?
Back in October 2006, Career seemed stuck at Technology department of National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange. Being an opportunist, take it ambitious here; I was trying everything to extract something useful from a free falling organization. Though we were getting more than expected respect there, being first batch from IIT, we were pretty much free with nothing to do whole day. I got to enjoy time with some really wonderful colleagues, who became best friends for life and amazing seniors. I am kind of person who never like to sit idle, want to keep performing and trying and learning new things. In a very late attempt, with the help of a very experienced, senior person, I tried my luck and got a chance to work in Risk Management. This was my first break through to enter Quantitative Finance and to work under an amazing head.
Working in Risk Management at NCDEX led me to give a try to my ‘once dream job’ during placement season of IIT Bombay. When I got a call from HR of Lehman Brothers, I was not at all aware of what all departments are there. Even I didn’t know which department I got call from. I still remember I started studying about CDO when a colleague told me that I got call for Exotic Derivatives. With no preparation, very little idea of whats going to happen, I went for an interview at Lehman Powai, I dint even knew where the building is. Having good luck and little knowledge of commodities, futures, options-all owing to my head at Risk Management at NCDEX, I got through Lehman, Exotic Derivatives. I believed this was because of lucky charm of my fiancée, we got engaged on 1st April 07!!
Life at Lehman started wavy. Got some good friends, handled some hard people. Some were frustrated by the ‘Back Office’ status, some were contended with however things are. This is all part and parcel. This entire time one thing which was on my side is my ability to work hard. And again luck came in my favor to work in Single-stock Exotic. And here began best time of my career.
[Derivatives means financial instrument whose value depends on underlying asset.
Exotic Derivatives means derivatives which are not plain vanillas but either:
1) Payoff is complex
2) Hedging is complex
3) Underlyings are complex]

I made so many good friends. I got little lucky to join before a new batch so that I got friends with both the batches. Some of these are really good friends and I am happy to get respect from all of them. I also got lucky to work on various parts of exotic-derivatives: Option Pricing and Managing Books. Meanwhile, got in good terms with senior traders at London. Whole conception of ‘London guys are mean’ was broken. I began to believe some of them are much better than what popular belief was.
Very soon we were restructured to a new team. We were all happy in a team. I liked all my juniors, with getting proper response from all of them. I never hesitated for any work. I made sure to set an example to my team and staying late if required, standing by the team, making full efforts to protect team’s interest.
I got married and all were happy. We rented a flat 10min walk from office. Her office was in the same building as mine. Everything was going on happy-go-lucky. While this story was building, dark clouds started gathering, on whole financial market.
We were happy in our own small world. Having fun whole day and coming to office was anything but bad. Enjoying days as they pass, totally unaware of the big bubble that was about to burst.
In its first step it blew Bears Sterns, which got sold to JP Morgan Chase at $2 a share. Jammie Dimon, JPM came out heroic in taking over Bears Sterns. Next in line was famous Fannie-Freddie. On 13th July 08 U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve effectively nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support U.S. housing market. Meanwhile, Lehman stock was falling free under gravity (Lehman fell by 44% from 11th July to 14th July). We saw Lehman share price coming from 19 to 17, to 13, to 9… All this while we never lost our hopes. There were hopes that someone would definitely take over lehman-may be everyone had belief that we are still good or we were too complacent. Each day like a to-be-married girl, we get name of a possible buyer. With each passing news shares were moving 5 to 10% in either direction. To start with KDB (Korean Development Bank), but its rightly said about Koran belief: ‘if a US investment banker is selling you something, he is cheating’. Hence the regulator’s caution caused lehman losing KDB. Then we were hopeful with Barclays, or a consortium of other banks who could take us. Nothing working out we saw lehman shares down by 45% to $7.79 on 9th September and another 42% drop on 11th Sep to bring it to $4 a piece. We were very much hopeful that over the weekend some deal will be finalized.

15th September 2008
On Monday morning, I casually switched on TV to see the news and first thing I saw is: BREAKING NEWS-LEHMAN BROTHERS FILING BANKRUPTCY. It was totally unbelievable for me, for everyone. When I reached office, I was in no mood to accept it. We got an official mailing stating that Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. has filed chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Chapter 11 implied Lehman will get some buffer time to see where the world moves in couple of days. I tried my best to boost my team to work and prepare morning report on that day. But, of no use. There was no work since then. Its all over. No one knew whats going to happen, what going on. Everyone has his/her own responsibilities. Millions dreams were shattered, no clue of what to do next. May be the company liquidates tomorrow and we belong to nowhere. Not everyone was even ready to prepare resume. Bearing our own trouble everyone was sharing and helping out other more needy. Another bad news of the day: Merrill Lynch & Co Inc to be taken over by Bank of America Corp.
Immediately after Lehman bankruptcy, other I Banks created a liquidity pool of $70bn to face any liquidity crunch after lehman. Worst thing, lehman was not allowed to participate. It seems, what we were dreaming over the weekend, that some I-Bank will take over; These I-Banks were preparing for our funeral!
Part of the reason why Lehman was forced into bankruptcy was because its prime brokerage clients began pulling out their capital. Lehman lost 50 percent of its prime brokerage assets in the last week of its existence. So the fear that Lehman could go bankrupt contributed to its quick downfall.
Prime brokerage clients are like depositors. If they feel their money is unsafe they will cause a run on the bank. But unlike with bank deposits, there is no government-backed insurance plan to protect their funds.
Lehman Brothers: Post 15th September 2008
16th September 2008: Barclays agreed to buy parts of Lehman's North American assets for $1.75 billion.
22nd September 2008 - Nomura Holdings Inc says it will buy Lehman's franchise in Asia Pacific and acquires Lehman's business in Europe. Deal does not include Lehman Powai office.
We were still stucked, uncertain for our future, career. There was news of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Nomura in talks but nothing concrete. Best thing with us was that we were going to office!
6th October 2008-Nomura Holdings COO, Mr. Hiroshi Tanaka came to Powai office to announce the deal. Hopefully there wont be any layoffs as they said retaining the remuneration. May be it’s the pause for a very bad time.

Others: Post 15th September 2008
September 16 - Fed announces plan for $85 billion loan to American International Group Inc in return for 80 percent stake
September 21 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley become bank holding companies regulated by the Fed. End of stand alone Investment Banks and the real cream ‘Wall Street Jobs’.
September 25 - Washington Mutual is closed by the U.S. government in the largest failure of a U.S. bank. Its banking assets are sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.
October 3 - The U.S. House of Representatives voted 263-171 for the revised bail-out plan in their second attempt to approve the $700 billion deal.

The story continues. But this is enough to experience at the age of 26? What we have faced was unimaginable for the 158 years old Investment Bank. I still remember the time I joined lehman in June ’07 when Lehman was around ~$ 76 and now I have seen Lehman trading in 5 pence!!
I have seen glorious time of longest running CEO of an I-Bank: Dick Fuld and now I have seen his testimony, posed as a villain.

15 September

2008-10-08T14:05:00.000+05:30

2007

2008

Confession

2008-09-06T20:46:00.000+05:30

The Evil inside me..

Ask me in the interview what my weaknesses are and am prepared to give an answer which will prove that my weakness is in fact my greatest strength :-)

But doing the introspection, I find myself to be a such an evil.. There are so many toxics inside me.. so much impurity, so many weaknesses..

Now am overcoming one of my weakness of not hiding my weaknesses!!!

1) I am not a good friend. There are many people who takes me as a very good friend. But truely speeking, am not a good friend at all. I am little materialistic. I expect a lot from my friends and above all I just can't keep friendship. I get involved with my present (at any point of time) friends that I tend to lose contact with others. This has happened so many times. Though I miss my friends but the lazy fellow inside me do not let me take effort to call my friends. Sometimes I get too moody for some friends. I have friends whom I don't like and there is either no reason at all, or little reason that could bother me or some reason that should not bother me at all.

2) I dont accept any criticism, I just can't tolerate a joke on me. I have one of the most sarcastic sense of humour. I enjoy a lot bullying others but when it comes to me, I just can't accept it. It hurts my ego. Strong ego is my biggest weakness.

3) I dont manage time well. How would you explain this: A newly married guy ?(married for 6 months now) staying late in the office, liking his work when his wife is waiting for dinner. I am very very happy with my married life, but I have become oversincere with my work. I just can't leave when there's pending work at office. As a result I feel bad for myself. I am in a situation that I can't be happy either ways. But definitely I don't like my wife waiting for me at the dinner :-( . Am I inefficient to maintain work-time balance.

4) I easily trust anybody and based on that I tend to make judgements about others. I seldom use or make my own opinions to arrive at a judgement. As a result I do wrong, hurt people or even loose good friends.

5) I get very impatient at times. I become nervous and tend to loose my cool.

I know its a fight against myself and hope very soon I will come up with a blog saying I have overcome all the above weaknesses (and of course din't get any new ones :-) )

Mumbai meri Jaan

2008-09-06T20:43:00.000+05:30

I have read it so many times, at so many places..that Delhi is not a safe place. Girls can't go out in Delhi after evening. There had been so many cases of eve-teasing and other unfortunate incidences that keeps Delhi in one of the top un-safe cities in the country.

We Mumbaikar (though I am from Indore, but in Mumbai for more than 7 years now... also because of current conditions I would prefer calling myself Mumbaikar though I have spent 74% of my life at my hometown) always boast to be living in the safest city of the country. But is it really the case? Quite a lot of us believe it when they enjoy the night life of the city, the city which never sleeps. Even I have went out late at night with my friends quite a few times and so even I used to believe that this is really a very safe place till I heard of this incidence.

Some days back my colleague (a delhi-ite who used to believe Mumbai is much safer than his city) went to his friends place at Juhu. He was coming back in a Rick at around 2:30 midnight. Just a stone's throw from Saki-Naka square (which sees the heaviest traffic in Andheri suburb) a guy claming to be Marathi-manoos policewala, stopped the Rick and asked something to my friend in marathi. Unable to understand what he is asking for he said that he doesn't understand marathi and said he is a student studying at IIT Bombay and came from Delhi. The guy started hitting him all over, he slapped at face, punched at face, abdomen, all at the main road. He claimed to be a pliceman and asked him to come to police station with him as he said he is doubting my friend for something. He kept on abusing and hitting him saying non marathi's are spoiling their city.

He took his mobile and took him to ATM. He withdrew Rs. 25k and then with further scaring my friend the robber left. When we came to know this we like good friends suggested so many things, you should have remained inside the ATM since that guy wont have entered ATM as there are cameras, you should have said that card is not working, there is no cash, you should have used citibank or sbi ATM where you can lock yourself inside, you should insert your pin reverse so local police will get signal.. etc. etc. etc. endless advices. But being at that place, you can think of only one thing - LIFE. Anything could have happened that day, losing money was the least.

My point is when political party protest for Marathimanoos (am one for staying in the city for more than 7 years and marrying a Maharashtrian girl, and above all am Mumbaikar because I love this city) they should also think of this. There are always anti-social elements in the society who can misuse the fact. I am not against any political party for favoring Son-of-soil but they should also think that there might be such elements in the society who could misuse their theory.

For my friend, he is still scared, not even using his old cell number now. Scared his identity could revel and he could be attacked again. Being an outsider in the city, he was scared to go to police. With a new number and with fear he now says: Delhi is much safer, if this would have happened in Delhi, I could have tried so many things or at least complained to police.

Google Life

2008-09-06T20:41:00.000+05:30

I just wonder how important Google is in our life. Whenever I open my home computer these are the following steps:
Internet Explorer/firefox
then,
www.gmail.com, then
www.orkut.com, then
www.finance.google.com, then sometimes

www.blogspot.com

and sometimes this as well:
www.picassa.com
www.youtube.com

any other site I visit I go through google search engine.

Now with the launch of Google Chrome even the first step would be replaced by a Google application!!

Well, imagine life when there will be Google OS. Probably if this vertical integration continues then soon we"ll see Google laptops!!!

music of life

2008-07-23T10:11:00.000+05:30

Just when I was getting node in energy at office my colleague suggested me www.phulki.com. I never like listening to music at office but just wanted to give it a try. The site is amazing and more so it gives a realisation that music is life. Music is so important for life. Whatever mood you are, just tune into some light music.
I was remembering time when I used to just be my own jukebox and play my fav songs all songs (and sometimes play this game on voice chat with nana and pragya.. remember guys)

Btw. currently my playlist includes khuda jaane, aditi, kismat konnection etc etc etc.

Jaane tu..Ya Jaane na

2008-07-18T13:27:00.000+05:30

This is all about the new release Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane na !!
The movie is well hyped, so much so that when we were going for the movie next week of its release we were considered late. All our friends (and even their parents) have enjoyed this movie before us.
So with much enthusiasm we went for the movie, reaching 15 min before time (my wife because she don't want to miss a single minute of movie or trailers and me because i don't want to miss national anthem)
Movie started with some cracking voices and it came out that there is some tech fault and whole theatre stood up and shouting, creating an amazing scene. It was like first time I have seen so many people dared to stand together for a single cause. And this was the end of the interesting events in the whole movie.
Good points first: Music is quite good, it surely gives me smile whenever I tune into radio and this songs comes. Title song is amazingly sung by AR Rehman holding the notes. And he makes all his songs so difficult to hum. Pappu is just some random noise, but it gives fun definitely. Kabhi Kabhi is definitely a very sweet and best song of the movie. Kahin Toh, hogi woh is a lovely romantic song I heard after a long time. Last time I enjoyed such song was - Aaj meine dil se from movie Mein Meri Patni aur Woh!!
Acting wise Naseeruddin Shah was 'The Best' and he lived upto his status. Ratna Pathak has played the role of Imraan's mother quite well. Arbaaz and Sohail are irritatingly funny :-) Rest all (in a nutshell): Genelia's dialogue delivery is poor (just better than Kangana Ranaut), Imraan is cute and probably he can act well but nothing much for this poor guy to do here. supporting friends were hopeless....
Now here comes the story. Who says Aamir was slow ? JTYJN is slow because there is very less story in it. And who says that story is 'very next door'. This is typical bolly-movie. Hero dreaming of some warrior, finally comes out that he is a prince of Ranjhor. some weird conditions to become prince of Ranjhor. And whats the mistake of poor girl whom Aamir dumps because of heroine. End was like we were watching some 90s masala movie where hero is doing everything to get heroine. Crazy or what to like it ?
Overall this was a light movie (if we remove the pathetic ending), and good camera work has saved it from getting worse. Overall it will get 2+1/2 * from me. 2 because of all the reviews above and 1/2 because ---

My wife liked Imraan a lot, just to make me comfortable she says Imraan looks like me :-). So for her I am giving additional half star more.

New Bose advertisement

2008-07-07T10:10:00.000+05:30

Have you seen new bose advertisement. I can't remember the tag-line exactly but its something like: sound from soul.
The effect is amazing, there is no dialogue and only music. And I must say you can just feel this ad rather than getting it to know by someone.
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The ad goes like this: (warning :: spoiler of the ad)

A girl is waiting at a restaraunt, a guy is somewhere in a room in hurry, scribbing something. He reaches to the restaraunt where the girl is waiting and hands over the folded paper to the girl. At first it seems its a letter he wrote to her. She opens the letter and he move her index finger on the musical notes written on the paper and as the fingers are moving the music comes: Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you... it ends when a drop of water fells on the paper.. and this drop of water is precious drop of tears from girl's eyes. It comes out that girl is deaf. And in the end slogan comes: sound from soul.

Truly amazing ad after a long time. Wonder!! In the ad of an speaker the main character is deaf.
Good ad after a long time!!

Weekend Freak!!

2008-06-30T14:18:00.001+05:30

Choices..

2008-06-26T11:11:00.001+05:30

It just came to my mind to enter the blogsphere... I have so many choices to write about... I have been to so many phases.. I have choice of writing about my school friends, my love, my wife, my college, my college funny friends, my college serious friends, my home, my dreams and what not ? I really wonder we have so many choices for whatever we do...
When I just started this blog, I came up with so many choices of templates available. When I selected the very first I looked, I got so many fonts/size/color to select from.. and then to select one from so many ideas to select from.. isn't it always difficult...
I start with school... after passing X .. two choices - Math/Bio (I dont have any choice to be cricketer or a cook though:).. then select branch.. then select job.. then comes the biggest selection.. select your love, your wife...
Once I got into commodity exchange my next choice was an Investment Bank.. once I got into this my next choice is 'not an Investment Bank'.. then what next ? God Knows !!
I really wonder how simple things would have been if there were no choices.. what if I was told that I have to study to become and Engineer and marry the girl (I am married to now) and do a job in IB (and then get bored of it). What difference it would have made ? Still I am there after selecting frm so many choices...
As I write this blog, I am thinking of how my first blog will be welcomed by my wife, my friends-vivek, vartika, pragya, chhamiya, gurveen.. how will my crtitic friends nana & dubey react to it... how will my colleagues find it when they find about it.. some thoughts coming to my mind are paving way for next blog.. why do I always think of other people ? why dont I do anything without thinking what others will think of it ?
Or shall I write about little bit of finance I have learned, in my next blog. Or shall I write about a free holiday I want so much with my friends...
See before completing my first blog I have so many CHOICES for my next blog...