C'est la Vie

T.I.M.E Seminar & Party

2006-05-14T10:32:00.000+05:30

At the successful completion of the CAT preperatoy training program and followed by the resounding success results in the IIM selections, the T.I.M.E team organised a seminar in which they had called all the successful students for a Information, Knowledge & Exterience sharing with the CAT aspirants for the year 2006.

The events took place at Hari Hara Kala Bhavanin Secunderabad and was attended by, among others, the faculty and the management of T.I.M.E.
In the evening there was a party organised to celebrate the success, and all the students who have made it to the B-Schools were invited.

This was an occassion where we had a chance to meet al the folks with whom we had animated exchanges during the classroom programs and hadd heated dialogues during the preperatory mock Group Discussions.
Got to meet a lot of friends whem we had made in the course of the GD/PI preperation post CAT.

Was quite eager to meet Mahip & some oethers who had given everyone including myself a very tough time in the GD's
Amongst the faculty, met Kaushak Sharma, Bharat Jain, Manik Darruvala, Girish Simon & Chaitanya. All of these people had a remarkable contribution of steering our preperation during the GD/PI stage.

CAT is more like an individual game in which the bulk of the effort has to come from an individual, however in GD's the group work and the councellikng sessions became the differentiators between making it and missing it !

Viva la Goa : Pictures from Vacation at Goa

2006-04-11T23:32:00.000+05:30

Snap 1 : The whole gang wholed up at the Hotel Room. The holligans rfepersent the tru flavor of my college and for that matter any premiumEngineering College Hostel crowd

Snap 2 : Calangute Beach minus the blondes minus the brunetters or in short Calangiute beach minus the fun

Snap 3 : Calangute beach, for careful and keenobserves there is gold hidden behind.

Snap 4 : Just before I managed to Rinse my precious Digital Camera

Snap 5 : On Board the Ferry

Snap 6 : The Soaked Gang

Snap 7 : Sky, Ocean and the Horiszon that stands in between. the Beauty of the sand belies the amount of discomfort it causes to the visitors in the hot summer afternoons.

Flickr

2006-04-11T23:25:00.000+05:30

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Lessons From Life

2006-04-04T14:21:00.000+05:30

Life in the past two years has taught me many small but invaluable lessons. They undoubtedly form the most valuable of my possessions and the most prized component of my take-home from my two years of professional life.

The most profound of them is this one
“Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans”

Time and over I have planned out life meticulously to the last detail, laid out detailed plans, made room for contingencies and felt confident that this ‘finalized’ revision will finally and at last sail through.

Every one of those times and I really mean Every Single One of those times, I have this searing belief that the last debacle of my plans crashing down was because I forgot to take care of all eventualities and effecting factors.

The realization never dawns that the whole act of ‘Planning and Execution’ is fundamentally against the law of nature, that of ‘Chaos’. Nature wants us to keep working on plans, if at all we choose to make some. Though complete lack of it would mean mindless directionless meanderings, but one should expect to do constant revisions and improvisations as the situation changes and newer challenges keep cropping up.

What's funny is that the moment I start getting complacent thinking that I have got the idea of the game, the very next moment I am in a neck deep pothole; reminding me of my ignorance and my lunatic innocence.

It seems that “The harder you plan out life, the more it kicks you straight at your face”. For now I have taken a change in strategy, I intend to live each moment to its fullest, live my this ‘One Life’. While contemplating any action the two things that I will keep in mind are

The foreseeable consequences: just the ones that are plainly visible with a clear line of though. No Reading between the lines or Ghost Hunting.
Follow My Heart: Something I learnt from the wonderful books ‘The Alchemist’ and ‘Jonathan Livingstone – A Seagull story’. After all you get only one life of which you get to see only one snapshot to see at a time, Rewind and Fast Forward facilities are not available, so what better than to use your intuitive capabilities and count on the forces that be, or follow your heart so to say.

Personal MBA

2006-04-02T20:58:00.000+05:30

Josh Kaufman: Inside My Bald Head | The Personal MBA

Got this really intriguing article as a recommendation from some B-School friends.

This article talks about getting an education equivalent of an MBA sitting right at home and continuing with our professional commitments by leveraging the power of books.

Josh Kauffman, mentions some very valid points to bolster his case to someone who is skeptical of the idea, but before that he takes great pains to set the expectations right. This is something which can really make all the difference between a happy and a sad ending to a prolonged and arduous endeavor.

While I would undoubtedly agree with the general idea that books indeed can contribute marvelously to the learning of an individual, there are definitely contentions which cannot simply be discarded. A people oriented course like MBA could do with dollops of people to people interaction. Was discussing this with a dear friend of mine who is passing out this year from ISB and will be joining a dream Consulting firm. He concurred with my views, regarding the fact that in an MBA you probably learn only 10% of your lessons from the course curriculum per se. The cocktail of the arduous grind and the intense collaborative teamwork in form of assignments and presentations bring about an attitudinal reformation, transforming man, an inherently lone worker by nature to someone who is absolutely at home ijn a team working environment.

Josh of course, is not under any illusions and he makes quick to clear up the loads that needs to be done in order to practice in life whatever is read from the books so as to make it a part of our day to day life, only then does reading all that stuff really make sense.

Visit to Chittaranjan Park Kali temple

2006-04-01T00:26:00.000+05:30

Chittaranjan Kali Bari Pictures from my recent trip to Delhi

Akshardham Temple, New Delhi

2006-03-30T12:49:00.000+05:30

With more than ample time to spare and running out of places to visit, I decided to include the much talked about, newest attraction of Delhi, Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple.
With this is mind, hoped into an auto after taking a metro ride to Connaught Place, and it faithfully landed me right at the doorstep of the huge 'Temple Campus'.
Working in Hitech City this is the easiest similie that came to my mind, need not be the best or the most appropriate. The Temple compound was almost immeasurably huge, much larger than the Infosys People Factories constructed across the country.
The first thing that crosses one's mind or rather that should cross the mind is the name of the mandir, Akshardham. The very sound of it preposes great meaning to the planary of nomenclature. Akshardham means the eternal, divine abode of the supreme God, the abode of eternal values and virtues of Akshar as defined in the Vedas and Upanishads where divine bhakti, purity and peace forever pervades.

Read more on this here.

Snaps from Evening @ Prasads IMAX

2006-03-13T14:20:00.000+05:30

Silence Must be Heard

2006-03-13T00:08:00.000+05:30

Jumbo 500 - An Ode to My Favourite Sportsman & Cricketer
After Kapil Dev if someone really facinated me in Indian cricket, it is the bespectacled engineer fighting silently for a long forgotten entuty, Team INDIA, the "Men in Blue". What stands out is the difference in spirit that he has demonstrated, over and over again, in contrast to his much more superiorly talented, notoriously undisciplined and unscrupulously unsportsmanlike peerslike Rahul Dravid and Co. Unfortunately enough he comes from the same place which is also the roots of Dravid.

The reason for this comparison, inspite of apparent dissimilarities is the two sides of the coin of Indian Cricket that they represent. Dravid had the potential of becoming a phenomenal cricketing sportsman, but he rather choose the more convenient route of being an opportunistic route through the web of Dirty Indian Politics. Irrespective of the credibility or the suitability of 'dada' for the post of Indian team what cannot be digested or believed is that Dravid's intense lobbying had his own narrow vested interests more in mind than the future of Team India. Irrespectove of his calibre and his competence, he deserves of being disqualified from Indian Cricket just on the grounds of performing actions unbecoming of his stature as Vice-Captain of Indian National Cricket Team.

In an unassociated bunch incidents, during the rift period between 'Dada' & Dravid, I was frequently cornered by BangaLURUeans in my office in an attempt to kick a debate as to the relevance and the contribution of 'dada' and his 'dirty games'.
Even though 'dada' was never my pick of players, I was duty bound to defend him , not because I was expected to do so as a BONG, but because these regional sentiment driven folks
(the bangaLURUeans) were discrediting not only Ganguly's current call at the indian Cricket team but also his contributions throughout his career to Indian Cricket. Now this was too much. Ganguly, is no saint but comparing him with Dravid who's sole focus was improvinh his personal game, is like comparing Finance minister's role to that of a domestic housewife. I simply had to show the "LURU's" my middle finger through logical reasoning route. But what hurt me the most is that being throughout brought up in Delhi, I never realised I was a bengali, in fact I was one of the harshest critics of them, I always thought that I was only an INDIAN. It took some Frustoo LURU's to bring narrow regional sentiments into the picture.
Now, I am back! I love praising people for what they have done, the choices they have made, the way they have conducted themselves rather than their dynasty, birth or other no contributional factors. I am back at praising my favourite in the Cricket team, without any concern that with this those LURU buddies of mine would jump out of their seat to claim their common link with my JUMBO, doesn't matter they never till now considered his presence even worthy of consideration.

There are certain joys in life that need no explanation. One of them is watching 'JUMBO' Anil Kumble toss a twirling ball at the start of his run-up and then determinedly trudge in to deliver his ball without any apparent effort. As a bowler, he has been credited with a vital role in many of India's victories in the last decade yet, in many ways, the leg-spinner remains Indian cricket's unsung hero.

I loved this man for the HONOUR he brought with his conduct to the Gentleman's Game of Cricket.
He stood out amongst the hooligans like Miandad, Inzamam, Shoaib and the whole Australian Cricket team who had reduced this sport to a cheap show of antics.

One of the saddest time for me was when Jumbo, as Kumble is known within the team, was dropped during the 2003 World Cup, and with him having to face constant comparisons with Warne and Muttiah, had been discounted with a career long over.
This habbit of whoring is something that characterises the narrow trivial mindset of South East Asians. The tendency of comparisons ignore the principle of Unique Selling Proposition or USP which is the mantra of modern business.
Jumbo need not prove himself against the other good bowlers to prove his way into the team, all that he needs to do is to prove his worth and show how he is indispensible to a strong winning Indian Side.
The silence has finally been heard, the discipline, dedication, Focussed hardwork has finally paid rich dividents. Jumbo has finally etched his name firmly and permanently into the Hall of Fame of international cricket with his 500th test cricket. God truly is fair, Justice Finally is done.

Digital Photography EXIF/IPTC Information

2006-03-06T20:09:00.000+05:30

I never considered myself a Photography PRO, a mere enthusiast at most. And yet at this juncture in Digital Photography I find a critical flaw in the softwares' functionaity. While taking some images my camera date and time was misrepresented. I thought that should not be a cause of concern as I was not putting my date-time stamp on the pictures anyway. Little did I realise that the information is either ways stored in the picture header itself. This is called Exchangeable image file format or EXIF information.This information provides Extensive information like make of the camera, the aperture time, nature of flash, focal length, exposure time, date, time, ISO Speed Ratings and so on.
(The metadata tags defined in the Exif standard cover a broad spectrum including:
Date and time information. Digital cameras will record the current date and time and save this in the metadata.
Camera settings. This includes static information such as the camera model and make, and information that varies with each image such as orientation, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, metering mode, and film speed information.
Location information, which could come from a GPS receiver connected to the camera. As of 2004 only a few cameras support this, though. Some people therefore use a normal receiver to track their movements, and then post-process the images by matching the timestamps in the images with the log from the receiver and can so add the missing information to images.
Descriptions and copyright information. Again this is something which is most often done when post-processing the images, as only high-end camera models let the user choose a text for these fields.)

So just in case the information is incorrect in this 'header' the images appear chrnologically disoriented in an image organizer like PICASA.
What was lacking in the market, was free software that could edit this information in batches so that any error while taking the images could be rectified. A Definite WINDOW of OPPORTUNITY for wannabe entrepreneurs. I am attaching such an image with incorrect EXIF information. To see the Exif Information :
In Windows XP, Exif information may be viewed by right clicking on an image file and clicking properties; from the properties dialog click the Summary tab.
On Mac OS X 10.4 and above, this information may be viewed in the Finder by doing Get Info on a file and expanding the More Info section.
Check it out for yourself to see how much 'hidden information' can your photos carry !! :D

(For International Press Telecommunications Council or IPTC information Check here )

Budget around the corner

2006-02-27T12:12:00.000+05:30

With the Big Daddy of all Household Domestic budget less than 24 hours away, speculating on it seems the most logical thing on earth. Tomorrow the pulses will halt at Dalal Street, NSE & all the Commodity Trading Exchanges at exactly 11:00 AM, when the finance Minister P.Chidambaram will present the Union Budgetfor the Year 2006 - 2007.

There will of course be other sections of socities like housewives, students, Software professionals, Docltors, Engineers and so on who will proceed about the day just as any other working day of the week. But irrespective of who they are or what they do, this is one thing that will have a deep influence on their lives. A lot of things are going to become dearer, a lot of purchases will need to be re-scheduled, a lot of wages will need adjustment and a lot of domestic grocery spendings will need to be re-configured.

The budget holds different concerns for different "agents" of the society. Whether it is an individual, an institution, an organization or an investor. All will be affected someway or the other, some getting a gentle nudge, others getting turmoiled to doldrums. Concerns are hence in-evitable about this. Let me shed some light about the impact on "Indian Middle Class". For ease of description let us take a four member family: Mr. Ram (Aged 38) working as a mid level Marketing Manager in an Indian Company, Mrs. Sita (Aged 34) Housewife by choice and a qualified engineer by qualification, Luv (Aged 12) & Kush (Aged 9) both students at a reputed public school. Although there will be others who will be linked to them, like in-laws at both ends, for the purpose of simplicity, we'll take them to be largely financially independent.

Instead of keeping the analysis at a very generic level, we will take up individual items which are likely to be on the Finance Minister (FM)'s platter.

Fringe Benefit Tax : If this tax is hiked, Ram's official tours will become more expensive for his company. So while till now he was getting to use economy class tickes from regular airlines like Jet or IC, he may have to switch to Low Cost Carriers(LCCs) like Deccan or SpiceJet. This will also mean that he will have to forego the complementary meals both at the aircraft and at the hotels where he is put up by his company. Moreover the free shared cab pickup that his company provides and the fuel allowance for his personal vehicle may become a thing of the past. To top it all, telephone bills re-imbursements would also be subject to taxation. For Sita, it might mean that she may have to forego the weekend drives that Ram used to take her to. With petrol prices heading skywards and company on the verge of retracting the fuel expenses, this could be an acoidable expense. For Luv and Kush this may mean that missing the school bus would attract a harsher reprobation and may sometimes even lead to dropping off from school for a day, as his dad stubbornly refuses to drop him by his car.
Exempt-Exempt-Taxation (EET) : Moving from an EEE to an EET taxation system is widely being anticipated. Simplifying the 'latin' here for the non-financial readers an EET taxation implies that investments made for tax saving (like ELSS Mutual funds/ National Savings Certificate/Public Provident Fund/Infrastructure Bonds etc.) will attract a tax on liquidation at maturity. So to say, after the lock-in period when these aqre exchanged back for cash, the cash will now attract an additional tax. Under the EET system contributions to these scheme are exempt from tax (E), the accumulation/earnings are also exempt (E); however, the withdrawal/benefits are taxed (T). (Hence the E-E-T) An Exempt-Exempt-Exempt(EEE) regime on the other hand implies that such investments remain outside the tax net even at the time of liquidation, as has been the system till now. So this will mean that the lucrativeness of the various tax saving investments will be diminished or removed. So Ram can be expected to spend more than he did the last year and hence it seems that Luv and Kush can now have that Cricket Bat which was pending in the shopping list and Sita will have that lovely Microwave oven. Ram, can also opt to go for a family vacation with his new disposable income.
Customs and Excise duty Cuts : Finally a good news. This would mean almost all the things having imported components will be saving some money. We can expect some of them to be samaritian enough or having significant business foresight enough, whichever way you look at it, to pass on the benefits to the end user. So it finally may be the time for Ram to buy a Santro after bidding farewell to his 7 year old maruti 800. Microwave, cellular phones & Home theater systems are all going to beome cheaper. So all the more reason for Sita to go for that microwave, and in case she is able to spare some money from her day-to-day kitty then she could also opt for a DVD Player Home theater System. Luv and Kush can only hope that Sita would not ditch the plans of the DVD, and so they can finally watch "Lord of the Rings" sitting right at their home!
Inheritance and TOBIN tax not imposed : TOBIN is a tax implemented on International Potfolio Investments. Inheritance tax and TOBIN are two taxes that the left parties were insistent on. This would not have too much of ramifications on Ram's life as his father was a village school headmaster who had a meager salary, of which he spent the most on education of his two saons Ram and Lakshman. Sita, Luv and Kush too are imune to this one element of the tax.
Tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel to come down : This would mean that the tax on ATF that airlines have to pay would some down from the present 40% to a more sane amount. Ram and family would be hence more likely to get that Rs. 500 ticket ( + Rs. 221) of Air Deccan as it is expected that LCCs will pass on the price benefits by increasing the percentage of seats available in the lower priced categories.

So Much for Anticipatory Musings. If this is the state of affairs on the eve of the budget, just imagine the catastrophic length when the budget actually comes out tomorrow. God Help Me !!

Weekend Trip to Hussain Sagar

2006-02-26T21:10:00.000+05:30

With Multiplex pickets evaporating from counters faster than spirit spread out on a petridish, We were left with very little optoins this weekend than to cool our heels at Necklace Road and Eat Street. This is a nice shot taken from there. Beauty , it seems, is also in the lighting of the neclace road. Most Guys of course, wouldn't give a twiddle to this concept of beauty, and more so when we are talking of Hussain Sagar.
"Are you Kiddin? Get Real Dude! There are better things to see there !!"

Photos of Hitech City

2006-02-26T13:36:00.000+05:30

Cyber Gateway at the Top. One of the earlier Cyber workspaces Built. The First one being Cyber towers whose photos now don every promotional photograaph of Hyderabad

Below comes the latest in the triology the Cyber Pearl One of the best and most grandiose looking TCS offices.
Set in Red brick and in cylindrical shape this is TCS Deccan park for you

After TCS lets come to a rather eye catchy, yet awkward looking building
This is JVP for you. A Building that hosts three companies Kanbay, EIQ Networks and Agami Solutions with Kanbay taking 90% of the volume pie

But with the sparkling new Campus comming
out beside Microsoft, Wipro and ISB, Kanbay
would soon be moving out of this cramped location
to its rather voluminous new address.

Read a more Descriptive account here
See more snaps here

Carpe Diem

2006-02-24T10:43:00.000+05:30

Target :Harvard Business School
Came across the latest presentation From the HBS adcom and marketing team, regarding the prospect of their program and the knick-knacks. Liked two things a helluva lot. One is that they have done away with the madatory work experience requirement that most other B-Schools have and the second is the expansive and almost exhaustive financing options that this B-School provides. The later has some obvious advantages for both the school in terms of the intake pool and the aspirant, so wouldn't harp much on that. The former, is like opening up the windows to let some fresh air in. Suitably screened college passouts bring a certain amount of refreshing idealism and romanticism with them. They breathe a lot of energy and enthusiasm and most importantly hold strong to thier beliefs. A welcome change among the war-worn seniors who through their experiences in life often bring with them an overdose of practicality and pramatism so as to even under achieve than the seekable. A suitable blend of Ideology and pragmatism garnished with rich and postive inferences drawn from practical experience often lead to good judgmental outputs.
Anyways, Loved the complete presentation. Went through it over and over again until there was an over bearing of guilt feeling of killing precious time. Made me wonder when I will be able to walk into the corridors of HBS. Lot of students aspire to Kellogg or Wharton for the rich industry interface and the intense network they offer. Makes them better utilise their MBA, at least initially , when they pass out.
For me Harvard remains the temple of modern philosophy, thought and awakening. Incidentally I have seen my taste change over the years, and I have grown into much more of a conformist that the rebel I was in my yesteryears. I have come to realise that my rebellion too was conformity of a kind, I conformed to the commendable act of disagreeing with anything that was widely accepted.

I have overhauled this web-log to reflect the changes that I have gone over the past couple of years. I truly have undergine a thorough re-orientation over the past two years of my active professional life. I have begun to see a lot more and thus appreciate the multi-dimentional aspects of most worldly problems. The next challenge is to develop the ability to skim through chaff to seperate the grain from these, so to say that after apprfeciatiing the multiple dimentions be able to sieve out the crux of the matter from the ocean of nitty-gritties.
Let me know how you like the look and feel of the new site.

I am actually considering moving back from wordpress, which actually is quite buggy even now. Hardly a match for the amount of flexibility that blogger offers me.

Till the time I am able to makeup my mind I will probably dabble between the two

Cheetos.

P.S: I have resolved the formatting issues with this site for Internet Explorer. A big thanks to Sugata 'Joy' Bannerji for the same

About Myself in 25 Points (Randomly Sequenced)

2006-02-20T19:35:00.000+05:30

I love non-vegetarian food and my favorite in that would be Tandoori Chicken with a Thanda COCA COLA. In ice-creams I love Vanilla with chocolate sauce. I love having all of these in a Shere-e-Punjab Dhaaba. At home my favourite dish will be paalak paneer and Eeleesh Mach(Bengali Hilsa Fish Preperation)

I am a cocktail of a Delhi-ite and a Bong, think I retain the better half of both. For example I am as headstrong as any Delhi-ite and as Lazy as a Bong. I easily go up in arms to fight for My DELHI. I have stayed in Mumbai and liked it, but I definitely believe that Delhi is way better than that.

I am an early riser and love listening to music at BIZZARE volumes at the crack of the Dawn. I generally Don’t bite people when they bug me during these spells. I am quite tolerant in that respect.

I am yet to find out a time when I have actually acted sensibly in front of a girl. The prettier the girl the more clumsy I am. I do not think that there is something actually wrong with me, but only that mad BAD LUCK is all SCREWED UP!

I like good looking girls, but only as long as they do not open their big mouths and start spilling the ANTI-Matter stuff :P Its actually quite unfair of life that the pretty ones are quite bitchy. I wonder why I always feel for the ones these bitches play with and later ditch off for Greener Pastures.

I have an obsessive thinking disorder, makes me believe I am a chronological mismatch in the modern era of Instant Noodles. I am probably better suited in the early 16th century in Greece among philosophers like Socrates and Ptolemy.

I study only what I enjoy studying, and yes a lot of things actually do make an interesting read according to me. Operating Systems, Literature, Stories about our Freedom struggle, Biographies of Mavericks, TIME magazine, NATGEO, Harvard Business Review & Asterix are some of them.

The ideal way to send my weekend evening would be comfortably resting on a leather couch, with dim defused lighting reading “Gone with the Wind” with soft instrumental music playing in the background.

I am a bigger admirer of Tim Burners Lee than of William Gates (‘Bill Gates’). I always prefer a pirated version of Windows to a licensed one and provide complimentary assistance in cracking licensed soft wares.

I am yet to find out what is that single most important purpose of my life. But I am pretty sure, Life is for LIVING and not for the sake of mere Survival. I believe it is the unpredictability in life which makes it truly worth living. Life otherwise would have been a simple equation. Calculate and Be-over with it. Life on the other hand springs the most startling of surprises just when you thouhgt you knew it all!

I find it difficult to understand how people can eat gluttonously and still stay wafer thin. I hate it even more, that what I like the most are normally on the top of the Prohibited list

I am outgoing, outspoken, warm and friendly. Make easy friends in minutes and standby them even when all others leave. I have never come across a friend more faithful than I am, and I am not overstatibg facts. Its just the way of life with me.

I pity those who have a false sense of superiority of themselves, arrogance and imprudence really are a big turn offs.

I am uncomfortable with heights. ( Darkness does not frighten me and finds me quite unafraid. But despair and hopelessness arrests my free lively spirit. I have the SPIRIT of a STALLION.

I love my mom, dad and bros. I really am more of a family guy.

In GOD I trust. I think religion is something more private than one’s private parts. I do not accept interference in these arenas.

I like to sing even when I am not too sure of the lyrics and I know there are others who are watching me ! ( I am a bathroom singer, a staircase sing, an elevator singer, a bike singer and a jogging singer rolled into one.

I am intolerable to cruelty, somewhere inside me is that SILLY boy who believes that God resides in us all, we are thus all basically GOOD people. I truly am foolish and romantic beyond rectification.

I think Life’s been tough at times, but I appreciate the fact that it has given me the courage to Pull on this far! “To save me from the Storm, Is not what I ask of you O God! Give me just the courage to face it”

I believe in living my life so that my epitaph may read “NO REGRETS”. I have only one life, so I really believe in living it in my terms. As I look back, which I do often enough, I find lots of times when I was real good and then some once or twice when I could have been better. I DO NOT intend to allow the later count to increase.

I love spending Durga Puja with my family. Nothing, Nothing can really entice me out of that.

I believe that Indians and Americans can teach each other lots, Indian Philosophy and American Attitudes will make a killing combination. American Babes and Desi Dudes will make a terrific JODI. Similarly American Porn with Indian storyline will be a block buster seller. Imagine the storyline of Hollywood with Matkas-Jhatkas of Bollywood!! I think you get the meaning. :D

I loved watching Street Hawk, He-Man, Jungle Book, The World This Week, Vikram Aur Betal among others. I never had cable TV in my house so I watched Doordarshan. I hated Krishi Darshan and Gumshuda Talaash Jaankari ( Lost People Information). I was naïve enough to believe that news readers actually memorize all the news articles.

I am working in a software company and keep wondering why people always put on a front for others thereby complicating a rather simple life. I believe that SIX SIGMA PRINCIPLE is no match for the principles of management taught in BHAGVAD GITA. Six sigma id more of fluff, not much substance.

I keep in touch with my friends even though sometimes they don’t even care to return the calls. But most of them really appreciate my efforts and more then reciprocate the gestures. Some of the best friends that I have made are people who are the most different from what I am and what I stand for. The only common factor being the common Inner Goodness.

Wall Street Journal on INDIA

2006-02-20T12:02:00.000+05:30

A Passage to India's Future

By STAN SESSER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 4, 2006; Page P1

MUMBAI -- Victor Biswas, a New Yorker who arranges tours to India for museums, alumni associations and other groups of Americans, should be a happy man. He's sharing in the tourism boom to India -- his revenue last year grew 20%.

But instead of celebrating, Mr. Biswas is watching his profits vanish. His agency lets travelers lock in prices 18 months in advance, and he factors in "normal" hotel-rate increases. But five-star hotel rooms have gone up 30% or 40% in just a year. "It's killing us," he says.

Mr. Biswas's experience serves as a glimpse into the flood of change sweeping tourism in India. Travelers are coming in record numbers to the world's largest democracy, which is in the throes of an economic transition. But it isn't just the tourist industry that's being reshaped. The list of must-see places is evolving, too -- underscoring the speed of India's transformation.

The Jaipur City Palace Complex.

In search of this new India, we picked five places that are particularly emblematic of the changes underway -- and then spent time in each of them. In Mumbai, where trendy bars, clubs and restaurants are popping up all the time, the country's exploding affluence contrasts sharply with its well-known poverty. To see how the economic shifts are impacting India's politics, we visited Kolkata, where socialist policies are getting a heavy dose of capitalism.

At the beach resorts of Goa, Indians are spending their newfound disposable income on vacations -- and quickly turning the area into one of the trendier travel destinations in Asia. Udaipur, a city rich with Indian culture and history, is grappling with strains on its infrastructure from the crush of tourism. And while the technology economy of Bangalore is well-known, the burgeoning middle class in the southern city of Hyderabad shows that this boom is spreading to other parts of the country, too.

Overall, we found that getting around India is a lot easier for novice travelers than it used to be. New airlines translate into more flight options, and more restaurants cater to upscale tourists, meaning you don't have to restrict your meals to the hotel for fear of getting sick. Some four million foreign tourists visited India last year, up 15% from the year before -- and that was on top of a rise of 25% in 2004.

But there are still plenty of hassles, from people who follow you down the street to sell you things, to the continued lateness of trains and some airlines. Indeed, thousands of airport workers went on strike across the country this week in a protest against the planned privatization of airports in Mumbai and New Delhi. (For the most part, flights took off and landed as scheduled, despite the strike.)

My swing through India showed some major infrastructure improvements. New highways are being built everywhere. A four-lane expressway from Udaipur to Jaipur, the two biggest destinations in Rajasthan, has cut travel time almost in half to five hours. And a number of airports are being modernized. The infamous, two-hour-long immigration lines at Mumbai airport are now a thing of the past.

Five new airlines have started up in the past two years, and another five are slotted to take flight this year, according to the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation. One example of how this has changed the options for travelers: Jet Airways, Indian's largest domestic carrier, quoted me a fare of $520 roundtrip from Calcutta to Hyderabad. But I was able to book flights on the Internet on two new low-cost carriers (Air Deccan and Spice Jet) for a roundtrip fare of less than $100.

All of these improvements mean it's getting harder to get into the best spots. Two years ago, I was able to book my favorite Mumbai hotel, a renovated British-era apartment house called Shelley's, just a week in advance for the peak New Year's weekend. This year, Shelley's was filled weeks ahead for the entire month of January, and so were six other Mumbai hotels I called. I ended up paying $330 a night for a room at the five-star Taj Mahal -- with no hot towel or welcome drink on arrival, no one to show me to my room, and with breakfast and Internet access not included.

Richard Johnson, director of international relations for Asia at the University of San Francisco, has seen all the problems in his 20 trips to India over the past five years. He's been a passenger in an Indian-made rental car that caught fire and then exploded on an expressway. He was caught last July in a Mumbai monsoon that was so severe that at one point his car started floating. And he's had several bouts with stomach problems. But despite all this, he says, "I'm fascinated with India."

The U.S. has now displaced Britain as the No. 1 source of visitors to India -- some 600,000 Americans traveled there last year. "We had so many people traveling to India that we had to open a second office there," says Pam Lassers, a spokeswoman for Abercrombie & Kent, the high-end international tour agency based in Oak Brook, Ill. Bookings so far this year are already up 55%, she says.

Below, the highlights from our journey.

MUMBAI

Rajeev Samant, an Indian businessman with an engineering degree from Stanford University, recently moved to a new neighborhood. One big reason: The new bars and dance clubs there "are always buzzing until 4 a.m.," says Mr. Samant, who at 38 years old still prefers dating to marriage, to the chagrin of his tradition-minded parents. Mr. Samant, who sports a shaved head and thin gold earring, returned from the U.S. to start a winery, Sula. "Mumbai is a boom town," he says.

It is the commercial capital of India, but a capital unlike that of any other major world power. Transportation is abysmal, and the face of poverty is everywhere. But it's the best place to see the emerging young and affluent class in India: the cool restaurants, hip bars, the Bollywood stars.

The Mediterranean-fusion Indigo Restaurant, which was jammed on a recent Monday night, is now selling several $100 bottles of wine a day versus about one a month, at best, five years ago. Artists who previously needed a second job to survive are now flourishing, with prices for paintings on average doubling or tripling in the past two years alone. The number of galleries in Mumbai has quadrupled to 20, says Pravina Mecklai, who owns a gallery called Jamaat.

Some of the money in Mumbai is old wealth -- many of the country's old industrialist families still live here. It isn't uncommon to run into the son or daughter of a big textile baron who is dabbling in movie production. But new money from tech and other sectors is also fueling the club and restaurant scene.

In a country that once saw thousands of university graduates each year unable to find work, Mumbai is facing a very new problem, as the expanding service industry fueled by the new yuppie class competes for well-educated employees. "The difficulty is attracting young people to enter the hospitality business," says Raymond Bickson, managing director of Mumbai-based Indian Hotels Co. Ltd., which owns the Taj hotel chain.

GOA

As with China, Indians, armed with more disposable income, are now discovering their own country as tourists. This is helping to reshape places like Goa, the southern beach state that was once the domain of backpackers and budget travelers.

Vishal Minda, a Mumbai stock trader, and his wife Sanjanaa, both in their 20s, have visited every year for the past five years, staying at the high-end Taj Holiday Village beach resort. "We've been to Thailand and we're going to Europe in May -- but just one time," says Ms. Minda. "Goa is a place you want to keep coming back to." The state has become more accommodating to Indian tourists, she says. There are now, for example, several excellent vegetarian restaurants.

Shops offering Indian designer clothing and furnishings are springing up everywhere. The cash registers at Sang Olda, a home-furnishings store, were ringing furiously recently when the top executive of an Indian conglomerate decided to celebrate his 50th birthday in this former Portuguese colony. "His guests wiped us out," says Claudia Ajwani, co-owner with her husband. "One of the guests, an Indian who owns an IT company in California, furnished his entire California office from us," she says. "He wanted to 'Indianize' the office."

From top to bottom: Zwigs Pub in Mumbai; Goa's Sinquerim Beach; Udai Kothi Hotel in Udaipur; a dried fish seller in Mumbai; and Hyderabad's Hitec City.

The attractions of Goa are considerable. Goans are known as some of the friendliest people in India and almost everyone speaks English. The isolated beach resorts are magnificent, and a bargain compared with many other tourist destinations in India.

But Goa can be a downer at the same time. The narrow, potholed main road running along the beach towns of northern Goa is filled with horn-honking, bumper-to-bumper traffic, including beefy tattooed Europeans on motorbikes, riding past miles of schlocky souvenir shops and snack bars.

UDAIPUR

This city, a popular stop for foreigners with its elegant lakes and beautiful old palaces, has a big problem: not nearly enough places for them to stay.

While the scarcity of hotel rooms is an issue in many parts of the country, it is particularly dire here and other parts of the state of Rajasthan, which attracts more tourists each year than the Taj Mahal.

Some 1.2 million people visited Rajasthan last year -- triple the number that came just three years earlier. The shortage of rooms shows how ill-suited the infrastructure is in some ways for the level of interest in the country these days.

The very rich stay in the palaces, and the backpackers patronize the little guest houses. But that leaves out everyone in the middle. In some cases, room rates in Rajasthan have already doubled from those quoted in last year's Lonely Planet guide to India. Vinod Zutshi, Rajasthan's secretary of tourism, calculates that the state needs at least 15,000 hotel rooms (rated at least one star by the government), or triple its current stock.

The hotel shortage is creating some new opportunities for entrepreneurs. One happens to be the Maharana of Udaipur, whose family ran the state in the days of the Raj but lost all political power a half-century ago. He runs an empire of eight luxury hotels, whose rooms go for hundreds of dollars. But his latest project is the Garden Hotel, a renovated former workers' quarters whose rooms go for $70 a night.

The hotel has been an immediate success. Although it opened only last October, it's already completely full during the current peak season. "It's very difficult to get a room in Udaipur at this price," explains manager Ranjeet Singh.

The lack of hotel rooms should bring the international hotel chains scurrying to Udaipur, but it isn't happening. One explanation is that large cities like Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore have year-round business traffic, while Udaipur's tourism slows to a crawl in the hot summer months followed by the monsoon.

KOLKATA

It's a wonderful paradox: a Marxist government is changing this city from an economic basket base to a center for high-tech and other modern industry.

Once a proponent of radical labor laws and powerful unions, the government is now wooing companies with tax breaks and free land, in a bid to return the city to its former glory as the industrial center of India. It's a sign of just how deep-seeded the change in India is.

"Kolkata was a terrible place for so many years," says D.K. Chaudhuri, head of the computer-software company Skytech Solutions, which has offices in three Indian cities plus New York, London and Chicago, yet chose Kolkata to be its corporate headquarters. Now, "it's the most pro-active government I've ever seen. They behave like capitalists, no matter what the rhetoric."

The transformation of Kolkata -- once known mainly for Mother Teresa and abject poverty -- is one of India's great success stories. Downtown, the buildings are grimy, the air is polluted by the ancient buses and taxis, and the sidewalks serve as sleeping quarters for thousands of homeless. But a half-hour's drive away, in the spotlessly clean Salt Lake district, it's another world. Gleaming, modern buildings, reached by broad, tree-lined boulevards, house hundreds of information-technology companies. The city, formerly called Calcutta, also has one of the most vibrant cultural scenes in India, as literature, dance, modern art and music are all thriving here.

Marxist ideology still plays a role in the state of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital. The government has an active land-redistribution program, for example. But "Marxism is not opposed to industrialization," says Nirupam Sen, West Bengal's minister of commerce and industries.

HYDERABAD

Ashok Hadi, an information-technology consultant at one of India's most-successful companies, knows he could make $80,000 to $100,000 a year -- more than triple his current salary -- if he moved to the U.S. But he isn't interested.

"There are many more opportunities here," says Mr. Hadi, who works mainly with American clients of the Indian software-outsourcing company Infosys Technologies.

By now, many people have heard of Bangalore, the southern Indian city that is home to some of India's most important tech companies. But the rise of Hyderabad -- often dubbed "Cyberabad" -- shows how India's information-technology prowess is spreading to other cities. That, in turn, is helping to reverse the "brain drain" of previous years.

For tourists, Hyderabad offers a pleasant alternative to Bangalore. It has vacant hotel rooms, less pollution, and fewer traffic jams. There's a picturesque Old City built when Muslims ruled the area.

Hyderabad has about 300 information-technology companies employing a total of 175,000 people -- both of those figures have tripled in the past three or four years -- says S.V. Ramachandran, regional director of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, the trade association for India's high-tech industry. "More and more Indians in the U.S. are coming back and setting up operations here," he says.

The headquarters of Indian companies in Hyderabad are as luxurious as anything in Silicon Valley. Consider Satyam Computer Services, which has revenue of $1 billion. Its wooded 120-acre campus just outside Hyderabad features not only strikingly modern buildings, an employee swimming pool and a gym, but also enclosures for deer, peacocks, rabbits and other animals. Staff doctors tend to the needs of employees, while a veterinarian takes care of the animals.

And in Hyderabad, India's second tech hub after Bangalore, a relatively small salary can go a long way. With his $24,000-a-year income, Mr. Hadi owns a 1,700-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment that he bought three years ago for $40,000. He has paid off his car, sends his son to nursery school for $400 a year and has a full-time maid.

Write to Stan Sesser at stan.sesser@awsj.com¹

My Desk at its Shabbiest Best !

2006-02-18T16:53:00.000+05:30

Aesthetical Redemption

2006-02-11T16:28:00.000+05:30

handwriting/penmanship tips: "...you’re probably hoping a fountain pen will do the trick ... If you use a spiral notebook for practice, you can leaf back and see your progress. At first, your strokes and lines will be bad—over-running and under-running the lines, too small, too big, crooked, uneven, just ugly. Check your position; check your muscle groups; and try again. And again."

This is something I have always wanted to do. Have a beautiful typeset handwriting, something that would make my not so attractive writeups too, very very attractive. Now this is when I really realise two very upsetting things in life. One is the importance of the cursive writing workbooks that I had comfortably tossed off in primary school and the other is the amount of role the aesthetic appeal of an object plays in determining the first impression or the knee-jerk rection of an entity or idea.

Its Quite Profound, if I may so add. The other day I was talking to one of my friends about to complete his MBA from a top B-School here. He was cribbing and lamenting about the sexual and racial discrimination that goes on in the placement process. He was refering to the obvious preference that beautiful ladies get over aesthetically challenged men like him. In no uncertain terms he mentioned that the prefference of the selection body is unabashed and unashamed in this regard.
Girls, especially the pretty ones, are definitely first amongst all races that exist in modern civilization. To remove any doubt that may remainin the corner of your mind let me take an examlple. Try to recall the face of Mayawati or Rabri devi for a while (sorry for not being able to find a more aesthetically challenged politician). Imagine for a moment this was not Mayawati/Rabri but was Sonia Ganshi. The Foreign Born Italian Blood Indian Princess.
I think somehow the discomfort in the above scenario is obvios and stark. I do not need to further elaborate on that! Somehow we want the people whom we admire and look up to should be good looking if not outright orgeous. In stories told to kids, Princes have always been handsome, its the villain who reserves the honour of being of Mirror-Cracking material. Somewhere the over importance of looks is imbibed in the psyche of us right from when we are born. Rmember all the relatives ho come over to see a new born and keep complimenting on how goodlooking the baby is! Yes! It starts right there.

Krazy Brotherhood: College Re-union @B'lore

2006-02-08T21:07:00.000+05:30

One Weekend Well Spent!
That sort of sums up the last weekend spet at J.P. Nagar residence of my college/hostel buddies. It was a true pleasure meeting them after what was a longish span. Some had changed, few even drammatically, but all in the positive sense. Was particularly impressed by one Maverick guy whom I always found poles apart from me while in college. Had a very dissapointing opinion about him. Boy! Has he changed! Must say that he indeed pleasantly surprised me. Was a true pleasure having his company for these days. I think I am glad that I met him, so as to comfortably dispose-off his previous image, that I had so preciously preserved since college days. Was particularly impressed by one Maverick guy whom I always found poles apart from me while in college. Had a very dissapointing opinion about him. Boy! Has he changed! Must say that he indeed pleasantly surprised me. Was a true pleasure having his company for these days. I think I am glad that I met him, so as to comfortably dispose-off his previous image, that I had so preciously preserved since college days.
In fact quite a few of us have changed in more ways than I thought we could do possibly. Some have lost the innocence, others have been so hardened by reality as to permanently impair their ability to dream, some have become too cynical and sceptical about their past as they bask in the essence of their present glory. All the while comfortably shelving to an unkempt corner of the mind the realisation that it is probably their that so ill-mouthed past that has brought him to this day. But then there are others, as the one whom I referred before who have beautifully bloomed from the promising bud stage to that of a shining flower.
Strangely it reminds me of the great philosopher Benjamin Disraeli,
"Life is too short to be little"

How profound!
Think Big and you'll be BIG.
You'll be big in happiness,
big in accomplishments,
big in friends,
big in prosperity,
big in RESPECT.

I thank all those friends of mine for the wonderful time I had with them and the splendid memories that I got!
I wish them Good Luck in whatever they pursue and pray that they arrive at their destination happily, content and in Peace.

We sure Rocks!

Life as an investment banker

2006-02-02T17:06:00.000+05:30

Wannabe an investment banker ?

Superb article to read for all those who aspire into one of those coveted "I-BANKS"
Another interesting read detailing about the Investment banking career as such, the demands, the aspirations and the stuff that goes behind can be found here.

Honestly, its a wonderful read and a true blood Eye Opener for those DOLLAR dreaming individuals!!

Re-instating Objectives

2006-02-01T08:51:00.000+05:30

Sometimes when you are going at lightning speed in life it becomes all the more to re-instate the previously decided objectives, just so that that occasional straying can be avoided and the progress is consistently "On course".

So here as I sit in my this rather spacious aparment in Hyderabad, much bigger than the one in which I stayed for most of my kid life in Delhi, reminiscing about my pleasant childhood in Delhi and wishing for an instant that I could go back, even for a little while, to that comfort of Delhi, the familiarity, the parental care, the carelessness and the freedom to dream unleashed-unbridled. I get a realization than slowly the journey is becoming tiring and though I am not realizing it this instant, soon fatigue will set in. Before that happens I need to recharge my batteries so as to be Loaded for the next round.

Now, to reinstate objectives would be a simpler cause. But here we are talking of dreams, of aspirations, of hopes, of desires, of unchallant thoughts! Now this is is a different ball game altogether! So lets set forth this small exercise in a simplistic manner, using a Third Party Approach. Idea is to pen down all this guy felt and all this guy was coveting and fighting for when he got down to do a Re-fuel.

I see myself after a fullfilling tenure in professional life moving in for the KILL; an MBA from one of the top B-Schools in the world (Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Kellog, Wharton types..) probably one of the IVY LEAGUES. India is not good enough for me. Good as the IIMs are they still house some guy from CBIT Hyderabad who bumped off his 4 years in engineering preparing for CAT and that roadside romeo from St. Stephens whose B.Com /B.Sc. was spent appeasing his GF from Lady Sriram. NO WAY! I definitely belong to a different league. I have a very bright academic record and spent my 4 years toiling hard in my Engineering in Computer Science. Includingthree very successful internships at C-DOT, TCS and finally Kanbay. Been working in a coveted which pays me pretty well though I hate my job as such!

"Hone Hone de Nasha, Khone Khone ko hai kya,
Ek Saans main peeja, Zara Zindagi Chadha,
Hai yeh to yeh Jashan, Tu thidakne de Kadam,
Abhi saanson main hai Dum, Tu chalne de Kadam"

After my MBA I may pursue a Ph.D. or may join some Capital market research firm or an Investment Bank and this will be the beginning of my life-long infatuation with capital markets.

I will not compromise on my DREAMS. They are MINE for me to STRIVE, THRIVE and ACHIEVE. I am going to take what it takes in terms of effort and endurance. I will never BETRAY them or LET THEM DOWN.

Though going for an MS would be an easy exit, I would not do that because that is not what I see myself doing after 15 years, and 35 years hence I would not like to see myself being associated without my custom made career for an easier Over-The-Counter Ready-to-use one.

A step-by-step approach would be :
Go take the GMAT first and get a score in the nearest possible vicinity of 800.
So that the best of B-Schools Gun for me. Will make my move to meet that end then.

A Picture of the next place which I would like to call my DEN. Thats NASDAQ for you!

We are Moving

2006-01-31T18:20:00.000+05:30

New Location

Migrating the site to a new Database Open Source hosting facility for greater flexibility in terms of content.

But at least for some time now would be maintaining this one too because of the much better perma-link handling capability.

The new site however would mirror all the content present in this one as well. In case you too are finding the layout of this BLOGGER site in a very poor state, I would strongly recommend that you try out my new hosting facility. For the Hyoper link click on the heading of this post or click here

The Chameleon in Me

2006-01-31T17:18:00.000+05:30

Different Hues of Me.
Sometimes makes me wonder
why we keep changing our
'jackets' so as to fall in line
with the surroundings.
Come "In Sync" so to say.
Forces me to think!

Rang de Basanti

2006-01-29T01:24:00.000+05:30

Checked out Rang de Basanti Today.
Really worth a dekho. Especially for somebody who is as foolishly hopelessly patriotic as I am. Was set in contemporary India with tinges of sepia here and there. What stood out is the beautoful paralels drawn between the India then and now.
Amazingly it seems like time has stood still for all these years. There is still the opressor and the opressed. The roles and the characters remain same as usual only the individual playing their parts have changed. So the Khaki clad British Sahibs are now replaced by the Pot-bellied UP/Bihar Hawaldars, who I feel are many times worse. Fact is that I really do believe that India has an acute problem in the form of these two states. In President Bush's terminology "Rogue States" Needless to stay Delhi inviting with open arms most immigrants from them also borrows some of their so characteristic fervour.

But while most people would harp on and on about the 'Fantasticity" of the movie there are some obvious loose ends to it. Something the Director did a bad job about. For Example the acting of some of the friends (excluding Amir Khan of course) was a bit loose at times. The script too could have done with a bit of primming. But as a whole is a very good effort. Quite a few of the actor/actresses including but not limited to amir Khan, Soha Ali Khan, Alice Patten, Om Puri, Kiron Kher, Anupam Kher and Atul Kulkarni have done a remarkable job of their roles. The situation gets so reallistic that ou actually miss out the fact that this is just a movie!
Before I conclude, I need to make a mention of an individual whose omittion would be as significant as that od DADA from the indian Cricket team. After a rather longish span A.R.Rahman has actually come up with a sound track which is not only quite good but also Club class ir rather Club Premium Class. He has pushed in a lot of Techno and Fusion stuff into the tracks along with the now routing Bhangra and reggae. Soundtrack is quite worth purchasing and i would recommend it with a rating of 7 on 10 for purchase.
In my callibration themovie scores 7/10 which is mighty good I must say. Considering the facts that Parineeta scored 5 and Park Avenue scored 6. The ones which Have scored homeruns are Agantuk, Godfather I-II, Silence of the Lambs and One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest.

So go catch it before it runs out of your nearby theater (which I assume will be not too soon anyways!).

Life @ God's Own IIM

2006-01-27T23:23:00.000+05:30

What's in My Mind

2006-01-27T22:32:00.000+05:30

Well Quite a few things to be Specific. Brushing up what all I have learnt (or should have learnt) in my Engineering, taking stock of my learnings of my years spent at work, summing up the net gyan about Business that has managed to percolate through my thick head, proof reading my NIRVANA regarding my career goals which suddenly dawned on me and brushing up my 'general' knowledge about the world in which I live.... And yes, Lest I forget polishing up my sense of Ethics and Integroity so that they hold good in an Intense grilling of 30 minutes!
Lots of things seem to have taken place n one day to provide fodder enough to rekindle the dying ambers to a behemothian flame.
HAMAS is back in power, Buta Singh has finally called it a day, PPF rates may afterall be spared a cut and of course a Budget disclosure of recent Congress summit in Gachibowli Stadium in Hyderabad which could put a Sooraj Barjatya directed7 Starrer 18 Locale Hindi Blockbuster to shame!
The most disturbing of these is however the recent summit that congress had in Hyderabad. It was in Gachibowli Stadium which is right next to my house. Lemme start with the positive effects first, the roads and the dividers with the proper marings came up almost overnight! The city was almost spotless, with the only odd thing the murderous looking fat moustached humongous creatures sporting a gandhian atire walking in arrogant strides through the city roads. On the flip side however lot of things have gone wrong. The whole city is full of Congress posters and banners; some of which have slogans which range from amusing to outrageous & Ridiculous. One such poster which is almost 10 meter by 10 meter in dimention and can be seen around every nook and corner has a Huge potrait of Rahul Gandhi and next to it has written, we want Reliable, Accomplished, Honest, Understanding, Leadership. What makes this border insanity are the two words 'Accomplished' and Reliable. Only God and the Illiterate Masses of India could have such foresight to look this deep into the future. On doing a more objective evaluation of Rajiv Gandhi's Tenure quite a few of his misdeeds prop up. Starting from 'When a giant tree falls, the earth below shakes", to sending the IPKF, to Bofors Kick-backs to finally the most Henious of them all, the Shah Banu case. His contributions to the country and its economy was only one; Liberalization and that too required the impetus of P.V.Narsimha Rao to get rolling. Reminds me of the American Presidents duo of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. While Lincoln had legally abolished racial discrimination it remained rampant and poingnant in day to day life. It took a persona of Kennedy's stature to finally put words toaction. No wonder that the credit for this almost entirely goes to JFK.
P.V.Narimha Rao had definitely outperformed all Indian Prime Ministers till date and the only one who can actually compete with him would probably be Indira Gandhi.
Leaving with a collage of my present time gobbler : My Notebook, Broadband, Wikipedia, Textbooks and Computer Sciences!

A Bygone Year 2005 in Pictures

2006-01-27T12:00:00.000+05:30

www.flickr.com

Ch-eeee-tos' Collage of Life @ 2005.The Best I had! photoset

Calvin says it Best !!

2006-01-26T09:52:00.000+05:30

Karma Ecstacy and Computer science

2006-01-25T23:28:00.000+05:30

Twiddling In and out of Perma/Sub - Consciousness
January 25, 2006

Life has been in a churner of late, with uncomfortable questions out popping up and refusing to settle down. Questions like what do I really want of life and w.t.f do I wna to do in my life, Why and more importantly Why not something else?? .. Now these can be really difficult to answer

How prophetic and how true.
Life is full of Surprises, but never when you need one !!
Bringing order to the house, let me start off with a diary of exciting events in reverse chronological order.

Been penning down my own “Five Year Plan” for myself; in the process answering some surprisingly simple but audaciously difficult questions. To get an Idea of what I am talking about recall the Friendly man from AQUAGUARD ad in which the kid invariably keeps popping up the uncomfortable question “ussay kya hoga” to the handsome salesman much to his dismay

Attended a hugely successful and a highly effective seminar on both SAT and SUN. Apart from the ‘take-home’ in terms of the discourse it was a very useful networking platform

Been brushing up a lot of long forgotten stuff from Computer Science. Thanks to Wikipedia. As they say the Ghosts of the past are returning to haunt me.

Finally moved on to my own new cabin space in my office. Now that’s good but I had to loose so much of priceless personal data which the office personnel stubbornly resisted from transferring to my new system

Finally, its parting time with G, one helluva troublesome roomie of mine.

Have an Interview Scheduled tomorrow so will ask the time machine to enter the warp zone and hence pause the “Reverse chronological synopsis”

Colin Gregory Palmer - Book Review - Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

2006-01-17T20:52:00.000+05:30

Started to read - Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
Purchased a legal novel after, what 6 years! Now that's something of a news, imagine walking out to the nearest CROSSWORD book store and buying a book just on pllain fluke, comming home and then reading hrrendous book reviews about that on the net. On retrospect I don't realise the purpose or the point in buying a book on the fly and then going home and reading Reviews about it. Come on! There's got to be an end to reverse engineering.
I think maybe I should have limited myself to reading the e-book version. Best of it all it comes free! :-)
Anyways interesting term I came Across.
Antimatter : Antimatter or contra-terrene matter is matter that is composed of the antiparticles of those that constitute normal matter. If a particle and its antiparticle come in contact with each other, the two annihilate and produce a burst of energy, which results in the production of other particles and antiparticles or electromagnetic radiation. In these reactions, rest mass is not conserved, although (as in any other reaction) energy (E=mc²) is conserved.

But there were more than one technical Howlers in the plot as the review candidly admits. Especially the wireless transmission of picture by a hidden camera of the clock ticking away. And imagine the worlds top research lab going beserk trying to pin it down. Seems like concepts of Triangulation were unheard of in that period :-)
For those of you who do not know what it means, it simply refers to the technology of pinning down the location of a wireless transmitting/recieving device like a cellular phone or in this case a CCTV Camera.
These are things which would never occur in case the plot had been worked upon for accuracy.
In case you too plan to read the book, do check out the review oin the main link !

Wikipedia, Broadband, Computer Sc. & Life

2006-01-16T20:07:00.000+05:30

I know there is a lot more to life than that. But seems the better things of life must be put on Hold as of now; for a greater cause; or in what I think a greater cause. Only the results will indicate how profound or confound I was in my beliefs/misconceptions!
Meanwhile I am keeping myself busy with Operating systems, Networks, Data structures, Business Intelligence and other General trivia.
Also got a copy of Angels & Demons whiah I plan to finish in a week's time.
Will definitely wish life allows me a rest, a small breath taker after the continuing pursuit of such vague things.

Crossed Criss-crossed

2006-01-14T21:34:00.000+05:30

Never been so worked up in like about something so trivial as RJ-45 cable, NETBUI protocol and DNS config. If that sounds more latin to you lemme clear the fog. Was trying to connect my Toshiba notebook to my faithful desktop workhorse and was unsuccessful. Didn't give up until almost every muscle in my body was aching aloud. I think the problelies with Norton Systemworks 2005 which has been installed with its inbuilt firewall. Some how the ping packets were lost in desolate euclidean space leaving me to wander where the chink actually lied and belied.
So much for an attrocious waste of an otherwise pretty much usable weekend. Remind me of the lines :
It starts with one thing
I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal..
"In the End" by Linking Park.

Apart from that life has been largely uneventful with no major messups or goofups for a change. Went to see "15 Park Avenue". Was quiteprim and proper. Konkona, Rahul and Shabana have done quite nice work in this movie. But the character which really stood out in my mind was that played by Dhritiman Chatterjee. Incidentally that is one person I had really hated after watching "Agantuk" by Satyajit Ray. Incidentally watched Agantuk as a part of post lunch matinee masala on home VCD. Mamata Shankar and Utpal Dutta make a formidable pair. Every time I see this movie I feel the compulsive desire to shun any forms of Egotistic sense of achievement that I may have acquired over a period of time. Makes me wonder to what extent am I cocooned in my own world to be unable to appreciate the vastness or the variety all around me much like 'Kupamanduk" or the frog inside the dark dingy well.
A couple of other things also surface out and those are the amount of Home Work that Satyajit used to do while creating the script of any movie. Whether it is Armadillo or a Altamira Cave Dweller's Painting of Bison or Floccinaucinihilipilification or most profoundly and prophetically the magic of sun-earth-moon sizes. His movies always had dollops to learn from and to acquire and inspire to learn.
Anyways with all praise floating arounf for "15 Park Avenue" can't help but wonder the difference in League between Satyajit and even someone as talented as Aparna Sen.
~ Cheetos

INDIA TODAY article on Lal Krishna Advani

2006-01-11T21:02:00.000+05:30

L.K. Advani - Makeover Man

With the handing over of power to Rajnath Singh ends the era of Advani-Vajpayee Regime. Quite the opposites in nature and yet they seemed to be just the perfect team. Politicians always have dirty linen, which their opponents wash in public. I will not dwell on the appropriateness or lack of it on the political doings of this person. I would rather probe a little deeper into the person per se to find out what differentiates this person from Mayawati, Mulayam and the other rag-picker-jabbers of UP Politics.
Lal Krishna Advani, sometimes called the iron man of modern India, has always been very candid and forthcoming in his interviews. The one covered in the cover story of India Today is no different. Speaking to Arun Poorie about his views and opinions about M.A.Jinnah, the gandhi-nehru family among others.

"I made two mistakes. I should not have agreed to take over as party chief from Naidu and I should not have withdrawn my resignation after they passed a resolution asking me to continue".

Apart from many other things he has told one thing very clearly, one is that there were certain facts about Jinnah that interestingly vanished much to the comfort of the Nehru-Gandhi leadership, and secondly that he has changed as a person after his stint in power. According to him he has begun to understand the nuances of governance and the various constraints which are applicable to it better.
This is quite interesting, especially the way he justifies the change, taking the example of the Tories and the Labour parties in UK. Gradually in governance the more you come to power the lesser remain the differences. This actually is quite true as the long term poolicies that any government pursues cannot be abandoned or overhauled by the new government which comes to power, because of social, political, economic and legal implications. It basically has no alternative than to pusue them with minor tailoring if so desired.
For example the case of De-regulation. Once the Narsimharao government initiated the process they set the wheel rolling. There was no way to stop it. A highly disgrunted government could at best slow it down, like the JD government did. But it was only a matter of time before it would follow its due course, as it did.
In this same context Advani echoes expected voices on being asked "Is UPA similar to NDA"; he says that UPA can never be similar to NDA with the Red bastion firmly entrenched in the center.
He goes on to say that congress and its alies have a concept of secularity which he is alien to, calling it vote-bank religion. I would put my two cents on this one. If reserving 5 % for Muslims or Government funding Haj yatra for poor Muslims is Secularism then maybe the term in itself needs a 180 degree phase shift. Comfort to minority does not and should not imply undue and unfair favours to them at the cost of marginalizing the majority. After all what is the fault of a Hindu child when he is preferred over a Muslim kid in any educational institution or governement office, only the fact that he is a Hindu ?
~ Cheetos

Sabbatical Chronicle

2006-01-09T20:15:00.000+05:30

December & January Updates
Been out of circulation for a while. Every single day I relegiously felt ill at ease about not blogging and then religiously chose the convenient route to 'shift focus'. Anyways lots of things happened even as the previous year was drawing to a close, as chronologically listed below.
1.) Spent Christmas with parents who had come over
2.) Had a college re-union of sorts with folks comming over from all over.
3.) Performed as Pathetic as possible in CAT
4.) Topped the distaste with being congratulated all around for belling it.
5.) Preparing for K, taking frequent plunges in Computer Sc books. This interestingly is bringing back lots and lots of memories and reminded me that I was actually quite good at this, while I was at it!
Makes my Resolve all the more stronger!
"But you can Johnathan, for you have learnt.
One school is finished and the time has come for another to begin."
- Johnathan Livingston
The seagull story

Incidently the link in the title bar takes you to some snaps of our re-union.

~ Cheers ~
Cheetos

Silicon Genesis

2006-01-09T20:01:00.000+05:30

Silicon Genesis
The above is a link to Stanford University site which contains video recordings and transcripts of some of the pioneers of Semiconductor industry. A Must for all Silicon Buffs !

By the way I am back after a small Hiatus.

If Lifelihood is for life, what is life for?

2005-12-19T00:54:00.000+05:30

My this post is dedicated to these two individuals

1. Satyendra Dubey

2. Manjunathan Shanmugam

Among them I will focus on the later, not because the former's contribution was meager or lesser by any means but only because the later is chronologically neare to date, and as is said in Julius Caesar, "The Public have a very short memory".

Finally one mainstay newspaper did carry a report on Manju. Always believed that ET was the better of the two sibblings for Benett&Colman, TOI being the more popular one. My belief got another feather on its cap with this article.

May his soul rest in peace and may his efforts not go in vain.

Makes me believe that there is, what can be called a relapse Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's children"; children who were shaped on that fateful midnight, sandwiched between 14th and 15th August of 1947; 'as the stroke of Midnight hour, when the world sleeps India will awaken to life'.

Truly! How Prophetic! India is truly awakening to life, reminds me of Prince 'Kumbhakarna' form the Indian mythology. Waking up from his numerous years of prolonged sleep due tu the hustling-jostling of all the perturbed sepoys.

Its not that hydra headed demons of red-tapism, adultery, bribery and so on and so forth which plague our day to day lives have just popped up from nowhere. They were there and thriving peacefully and amicably. Its now that we have taken notice and the current effects are but manifstations of the expected Withdrawl Symptoms due to counter-meaures taken. Its indeed good ews. The fact that a boy, a mere boy had the strength in his upbringing in small town of Kolar to stand up against much more than a bribe of 1 crore, to face the bullets and perish with his values shrouding him in honour in his final abode. Indeed good news. Imagine the INERTNESS of his value-system that even walking in to an elite B-School did not stop him from walking out of this unscrupulous deal.

His teacher at IIM-L Prof. Chatterjee remebers discussing this question in one of his classes 'If Lifelihood is for life, what is life for?'. As expected from most such politically correct discussions involving future managers; this remained INCONCLUSIVE.

Prof. Chatterjee goes on to say, with Manju saqcrificing his life in the altar of truth he has been able to answer this critical question effectively, LIFE if for the COUNTRY. Indeed so!

Remain grateful to both these two ordinary folks who rose above ordinary circumstances, with ordinary handicaps (ones that we all come across day-to-day) to set an example with their extra-ordinary belief in themselves and their extra-ordinary conviction to do what it takes to pursue what they thought was righteous.

In a line, they bring back reminisences of this famous line,

"As dark is the night, as colorful will be the dawn ~ Rabindranath Tagore'

Adieu my fried, Adieu. May you rest in peace.
~Chirantan

Sharing the ~ SHARE KARMA ~

2005-12-16T20:47:00.000+05:30

Everybody seeks happiness! Not me, though! That's the difference between me and the rest of the world. Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria! ~  Calvin

Wow ! Is life a roller-coaster ride! Life’s been pretty much on the rocks for the past month or two. With substantial investments in the market and all of them loosing money, I was almost scheduling the filing of my Chapter11. The past couple of days the market has revived but not my shares; and just when it seemed that the wheel might actually come a full circle, it stopped the turn and went back spiraling down.

Today however was a different ball game. After witnessing volatile trading, the markets gathered momentum and rallied further as the Sensex surged over 100 points. The bounce back was led by heavy buying support from operators on the back of sustained and increased FII inflows. The BSE 30-share index settled at an all time high of 9284, up 114 points while the Nifty closed at 2813, marking a gain of 45 points.

I am hoping against hope that the upswing will continue so that I can actually undertake redemption of my curiosity fuelled investments.

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway. ~ Calvin

Why I got into the market in the first place is a separate story altogether. I have always (atleaset for quite a few years) have dreamt of becoming an Investment Banker (I Banker). Always felt ashamed of even admitting the same to myself even as I did not know even an ‘I’ of Investment. So with my meager paying job, I decided to skip some frills of life in order to make the ends meet with some spare moolah to pump into the market. Now the terms ‘moolah’ and ‘pump’  are crash gross overstatement/criminal exaggeration. Anyways, that was me saving my pennies every here and there and saving it diligently to make my foray into the market. Amusing as it seems now in retrospective analysis, those were the days I had just finished ‘Kane and Abel’ and the hangover of prodigy of William Kane was still to pass.

The above quoted saying of Calvin can summarize the total  erudition from the Securities market.
The ‘Guru Mantras’ so to say

Investment is ALWAYS for the long term

NEVER try to predict the market.

These are the two basic lessons that every ‘wannabe’ investor comes across while doing his homework and he chooses to ignore much to his peril. Finally after a hell’uva cuts, bruises and tears realizes the truth in the prophecy.

I too have got my cuts, and its high time to ‘Band-Aid’ them !

So long Speculative Trading …

Yeah, come in Analytical Investment !

~Cheetos

The Market Today : At a glance

2005-12-16T20:45:00.000+05:30

Heart vs Head

2005-12-15T16:09:00.000+05:30

Heart vs. Head

“But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!”

Many a times I. feel I talk more from my heart than from my head . Today got into an argument with a person at a traffic crossing. It was right in front of Madhapur petrol pump and the full traffic was waiting for Chief Minister to pass by. The frenzied traffic cops were uttering some gibberish in Telugu and as expected most people(including myself) were not getting a clue as to what he was trying to say. After a while I got irritated and asked him why he was not talking in Hindi, to which an irate passenger dressed in all black, with naked foot and carrying the ‘pious’ mala replied as to what business was it mine which language the traffic cop uses. I replied by saying that just in case he is not aware, Hindi and Telugu is the official language of India. Must admit that I might have invited serious trouble for myself, knowing the volatile and capricious nature of the cop constables on the prowl.

I get this recurring feeling that more than anything else; it is this obstinacy to not learn anything common to the rest of the country, that keeps southern India still disconnected from mainstream India and hence the aptness of the term, “South Indian”.

Moving to something most ’Junta’ can connect to: Cricket. The way Ganguly has been left out of the team in spite of doing a ‘at-par’ performance speaks volumes about the reigning captain, Rahul Dravid. According to me, Sharad Pawar is the worst thing that has ever happened to Indian Cricket. Its like getting La’loo Prasad Yadav to head NASA. Tragic at best! People should start expecting Maharashtria-kars and mumbaikars to make it to . : clowns like Ajit Agarkar). The icing to the cake is that there are are characters like Raqj Singh Dungarpur and Bhishen Singh bedi who played mediocre, subsistence level cricket in their Hay-days deciding the fate and future of the most successful captain this country has ever had. The gluttony never Ends!

L'amour Toujours

2005-12-10T21:34:00.000+05:30

One of the SEXIEST Numbers I came across
i still believe in your eyes
i trust don't care what you've done in your live
baby i'll always be here by your side
don't leave me waiting to long
please come back
i still believe in your eyes
there is no choice
I belong to your life
because i live to love you some day
you'll be my baby and we'll fly away
i fly with you (3x)
everything and everynight
i always treat back
you are by my side
oh baby, everything and everynight
we are so laughing
things gonna be all right
and i fly with you (3x)
I still believe in your eyes...
i fly with you (3x)
everything and everynight...
i fly with you (3x)

November 20 : is CAT Really that big a deal ?

2005-12-10T14:52:00.000+05:30

NOVEMBER 20
A big day for most Indian students aspiring to the Inidan Institute of Management (IIMs). It is a very sad day for me and not the least becauseof a pitiable performance in the examination. I have after all a Computer Science & Engg. degree from one of the top colleges in India to back me up and a very civilized and polished job to fend for me. Today is a day when one of INDIA's honest and Spirited soul reached martyrdomin Lakhanpur Uttar Pradesh. With passage of time there are these three states i India I really believed do far harm than good to the cause of the country. These are Uttar Pradesh Bihar and 'Waste Bengal'. I have a strong feeling that these trulky deserve to be 'NUKED' in order to prevent the contagious toxic enclosement from spreading.
"HIS decision to seal a petrol pump in Lakhimpur district cost Manju Nathan, a 27-year-old sales manager with the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and an IIML passout, his life"
And the worst part of it is that the stink of Joiurnalism or rather so called 'journalism' . Only Inidian Express had the 'Courage of Journalism'. Times of India & Hindustan Times were busy licking the ass of all the Page-3 and the feudalistic politicians.
What a sham of a system we have!
~ Chirantan

~ The Last Calvin & the best one ~

2005-12-10T06:54:00.000+05:30

Complete Calvin and Hobbes for download

2005-12-09T16:01:00.000+05:30

The lik above leads to a philanthropist' server containing the complete collection of calvin ad hobbes available free for download. All for you to download and enjoy! ~C

~ People who try never fail ~

2005-12-08T15:41:00.000+05:30

An Ethics Lesson for MBA Wannabes

2005-12-08T11:51:00.000+05:30

An Ethics Lesson for MBA Wannabes: "Instances have also been uncovered at Stanford, MIT, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, and possibly others. Using instructions posted by anonymous users on several Internet B-School bulletin boards, including at BusinessWeek Online, many of the hackers were able to discover their acceptance status weeks before decision letters were sent." The following are the excerpts from a very interesting news which has just come in. "ApplyYourself, Inc.", Web site had some bug which when exploited, allowed students to get a peek inside the university internal documents detailing about the application Acceptance/Rejection status. The B-Schools have hit back rejecting the applicants who tried to find out their app status. Harverd Dean Kim B. Clark says, "This behavior is unethical at best--a serious breach of trust that cannot be countered by rationalization."; he continues "..Our mission is to educate principled leaders who make a difference in the world .." and "..Those who have hacked into this Web site have failed to pass that (integrity) test..". Pretty sad for those candidates. I think the Harvard line is so typical OLD SCHOOL Dogamtist approach. A much more balanced line is taken by Kellog who say that they will evaluate each applicant found guilty of this breach on a case by case basis "In the best case, what has been demonstrated here is a lack of judgment; in the worst case, a lack of integrity". The counter argument would be something like "Ethics" is something than cannot and should not be compromised on. The worlds future leaders should not be the ones who digressed the line of righteousness , sometimes out of only greed and being unable to control the temptation. Well, two sides of the story, quite an involved one at that actually. The better part of the Harvard 'punishment' is that they would not share the list of students who have been rejected for this purpose with other B-Schools.
~ Chirantan

Titletracks of the most popular STAR PLUS Serials

2005-12-04T19:02:00.000+05:30

Index of /kunal/music/star
The link will lead to a page from where you can download all the title tracks for STAR PLUS Serials (at least the popular ones at that ..)

By the way went to give mock of an exam, was in true sense a mock. Pathetic performance! Felt sorry for my examier, which in normal course would be an unflinching Optical character Recognizer link to.. what an ORACLE Database!
You never can get quite enough of technology, can you ?
It is an everlasting Obsession.

Then so be it ! Ending with an ODE to that obsession, Chirantan

My Old and Faithful IBM Thinkpad R 32

2005-12-04T00:48:00.000+05:30

The Onset of the New tends to push the old-faithful to Oblivion
Not in this case.

My old and so faithful IBM Thinkpad which has served me so flawlessly is still given its due honour inspite of the new Toshiba Centrino already taking its slot!

My Dear Friend's Wedding Party

2005-12-04T00:33:00.000+05:30

That's one friend with whom I really hang
around with, more outside office than
inside, along with his newly wedded wife
on his wedding party at RESTOPub TWISTER.

Wishing you all the best for the road Ahead !

My New Laptop

2005-12-03T19:25:00.000+05:30

Site Feed in RSS 2.0 Format

2005-12-03T19:12:00.000+05:30

For those of you innocent souls who think that RSS is a new reciepie and the "2.0" indicates the time to be set in microwave to prepare it, here's the enlightener. RSS is a Feed layout (Now, don't ask me what that means, just listen and pretend to understand) and is a more popular one at that than the default ATOM layout supported by Blogspot.Chick here to learn more about RSS. Click on the header of this post if ATOM is not your cup'o tea and you prefer good'ol fashioned RSS.
~ Cheetos

Lovely Anti Smoke Campaign

2005-12-03T18:47:00.000+05:30

For all you puffing Chimneys out there. Check out this wonderful flash animation detailing about the HAZARDS of smoking. Believe me even if you thing that the end lesson "Smoke Kills" sucks you will love this campaign if not for anything else, for the sheer creativity of its conceptors.
Being a non-smoker and a non-Boozer myself it makes it easier to Pooh-Pooh all the "High"s that Smoking is supposed to give.
Chirantan.
P.S : Still waiting for my new laptop to come over

BBC - Science & Nature - Human Body and Mind - Body - Senses Challenge

2005-12-02T12:48:00.000+05:30

Sense Challenge
A superb application curdling the scietific temper which is cornered and hidden in each one of us. Makes us know human body and the tremendous science it emplys a lot better. Absolutely must "check-out" stuff.

One of the very few BBC stuff which is upto the mark!

Chirantan

Funny ATC Quotes, Peoplesoft & World renowned Blogs

2005-11-30T22:42:00.000+05:30

funny air traffic controllers quotes: "From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: 'I'm f...ing bored!' Ground Traffic Control: 'Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!' Unknown aircraft: 'I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!'"
The hyperlink goes to a page having some ATC (Air Traffic Controller) quotes/Converstions which had me rolling on the floor. Have come across them for not the first time yet still it did evoke quite a magnificient effect. Do go there, especially if you are a jet setting traveller.

By the way I am on the verge of working with Peoplesoft. After the hostile takeover by ORACLE don't quite know if I should leave the comfort zone of Business Intelligence with/without due diligence. Waiting for a better sense to prevail and till that time holding on to what I have.

Came Across a publication detailing about the have/have-nots in terms of achievers in DOT.COM startups. One of the trends which have survived and thrived is that of BLOGS In fact in the 2004 Presidential elections in USAbloggers were invited along with normal press reporters from traditional media for briefings.
Some Nick Denton has been figured in one of most powerful men in US Media for his widely seen blogs : Gizmodo - the gizmo Blog, Wonkette - the Political Blog and Fleshbot - the porn Blog

I checked out one of these (guess which one ;) and found them to be quite good. For one, lemme help you with a taster for the stuff. Click Here

Rocking as Ever,

Chirantan "Cheetos"

Nikon Small World - Gallery

2005-11-28T18:58:00.000+05:30

Look through a Microscope.
This reminded me of the days of Scientific Temperament days when I had that uncanny urge to Question "Why & Why not".
This made me a perfect fit in the 'creatures' whose (over) inquisitiveness forces them to get behind the microscope to understand everything. Clearly a highly unsuitable candidate for IITs !

So Re-arouse that dormant temperament and Bon-Voyage on the journey of thrilling Science.

~Cheetos

What was the number one the day you were born

2005-11-27T22:18:00.000+05:30

This day in Music ::
An Ideal Blog for a Music fReAk
This site tells you the number one song on the UK/USA pop charts the day you were born. Guess which one is mine ? Its "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. Could easily Identify with this as have heard the Re-mixed version of this in the hindi movie "KAAL"
Cheers ~C

Lovely Email Lesson

2005-11-27T22:09:00.000+05:30

Got this rather fun email lesson from the net the other day. Quite informative and I thought I would send it across to all my buddies who keep forwarding such "get rich by forwarding" chain emails. But decided to exercise restrain.

By the way gave IIFT exams today. Was siiting on the same bench with a girl who was very gorgeous., to say the least. And surprise, she was actually flirting a lot with her low neckline! Unfortunately wanted to focus more on the Qpaper, which as it is was quite an arduous one, so had to cod shoulder her. Had it been any other day I would have gone ga-ga over her!

Life is definitely not without a sense of I-R-O-N-Y

~C

Music Stars Real Names

2005-11-24T18:28:00.000+05:30

Music Stars Real Names. Just stumbled on this site. This gives the true names of all the different singers. Quite a revelation actually to find the following (Better known Name - Actual Name):
1.) Jon Bon Jovi - John Francis Bongiovi Jr.
2.) Bono (U2) - Paul David Hewson
3.) Eric Clapton - Eric Patrick Clapp
4.) Alice Cooper - Vincent Damon Furnier
5.) John Denver - John Henry Deutschendorf
6.) Kenny G - Kenneth Gorelick
7.) Elton John - Reginald Kenneth Dwight
8.) Madonna - Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone
..

The list goes on & on !
Check out the site for more details.

Adios

Unconquerable Soul

2005-11-22T11:48:00.000+05:30

OUT of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

Bargain Bites - Top 16 Cheap-Eats Under Rs.50!

2005-11-21T23:14:00.000+05:30

	Bargain Bites - Top 16 Cheap-Eats Under Rs.50!


		Baker's Inn For the absolute best in all things baked and beautiful, you must visit this most popular of Amrutha Mall's attractions. Baker's Inn, 23 Amrutha Mall, Somajiguda, Hyderabad - 500082 (040) 5561-7700 Map
		Chicken 65 Bandi All discerning diners within a five-mile radius of Ramakrishna Theatre know that this is where you'll find the best plate of chicken 65 in town. Chicken 65 Bandi, Near Ramakrishna Theatre, Abids, Hyderabad Map
		Corn Club CC does such amazing things with the golden kernel that you'll have trouble believing this stuff is actually healthy for you. Corn Club, No. 2A, Ground Floor, Manjeera Square, Blue Fox, Minerva Lane, Ameerpet, Hyderabad - 500038 (040) 5536-9900
		Paradise Food Court They paved Paradise. But it remains one of the twin-cities' busiest food centrals. Paradise Food Court, Adjacent to Paradise Persis, MG Road, Secunderabad - 500003 (040) 2784-3115 Map
		Pick 'N' Move Anything dipped, swirled, tossed or generally smothered in chocolate is great here. Pick 'N' Move, Amrutha Estate, Himayathnagar Main Road, Hyderabad - 500029 (040) 5561-9999 Map
		Vac's Pastries It's out of the way for most of us, but news of the freshest, most scrumptious pastries in town has made its way around. Vac's Pastries, Plot No. 22, New Vasavinagar, Karkhana, Secunderabad - 500015 (040) 2774-0233
		Sandwich Stall - Convenio Almost everyone who works the midnight-shift is familiar with the sandwiches at Convenio. Sandwich Stall - Convenio, Convenio Petrol Station, Next to Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, Hyderabad Map
		Sarvi Bakers & Confectioners Of all the grub-hubs in the area, Sarvi's will do the most good for your stomach with the least harm to your pocket. Sarvi Bakers & Confectioners, Road No. 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034 (040) 5563-1113 Map
		Tibbs Frankie Hyderabad is descending in droves. Yes, we'd say it's been a success. Tibbs Frankie, White House Building, Next To Lifestyle, Begumpet, Hyderabad - 500016 Map \| email
		Country Oven Country Oven proves that old real-estate adage true - it's all about location, location, location. Country Oven, Greenlands, Main Road, Ameerpet, Hyderabad - 500016 (040) 2340-9241 Map \| email
		Big Byte No matter how many swanky new fast food joints come up in between, people are still finding their way to this large bakery that according to some, serves the best desi burgers in town. Big Byte, 8-3-978/3, Srinagar Colony, Hyderabad (040) 2374-2471 Map
		Midways One of the few places in Banjara Hills that will leave your wallet unscathed, Midways is an old favourite with many foodies of the area. Midways, Opp. JVR Park, Road No. 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034 (040) 5550-5000 Map \| email
		Sarovar Coffee Shop You can see why people keep coming back. Good food, reasonable prices and a little peace if you want to work or have some reading to catch up with. Sarovar Coffee Shop, Sarovar Plaza, Secretariat, Saifabad, Hyderabad - 500063 (040) 2323-7299 Map
		Step-In Anyplace that's replaced the much adored Shanbhag restaurant has some serious living up to do. And fortunately Step-In does more that just live up to expectations. Step-In, 6-3-883/9, Ibrahim Khan Estate, Punjagutta X-Roads, Hyderabad (040) 5534-5488 Map
		Checker's Cafe The next time you're tired of the same old same old, give Checker's a shot. Checker's Cafe, Opp. Minerva Coffee Shop, Himayathnagar, Hyderabad - 500029 (040) 5582-7102 Map
		Outside Shoppers' Stop Ever since Shoppers' Stop's food court has gotten obscenely expensive - and it never was cheap to begin with - people have preferred to skip the fifth floor altogether and get their bites at the main gate instead. Outside Shoppers' Stop, Shoppers' Stop, Begumpet, Hyderabad - 500016

Guess-the-google Image Guessing Game

2005-11-17T20:13:00.000+05:30

Came across this wonderful game. This one displays a collage of images. The player has to guess the word which when fed to GOOGLE Picture search will give those results.
Lovely Game & a very out-of-the-box idea indeed!

Cheers,
Chirantan

Kill Bill's Browser - Switch to Firefox

2005-11-12T10:11:00.000+05:30

Kill Bill's Browser - Switch to Firefox.Quite interesting anti-Bill..Oops, Anti-Microsoft rhetoric. quite frankly I really like and admire a lot of MS products but IE is definitely not one of them. So fat Firefox has performed a great job for me. Infact its even better than Opera, Plus it comes 'scott' FREE !

Today's Front Pages in USA

2005-11-10T18:55:00.000+05:30

Front Pages in USA Today

Bushism Elaborated :D

2005-11-10T18:52:00.000+05:30

aAnother Dig at BUSH-ism

Hilarious

2005-11-10T18:48:00.000+05:30

Careful! Lest you may fall on the floor Laughing :D

Nice Photo Uploader

2005-11-06T08:49:00.000+05:30

I found this really interesting site which allows you to upload you high res. digital photographs and displays then in different resolutions. So in case you want to retrieve the highest res. image from the site; lo and behold, there it is.
Unlike Yahoo! photos & Kodak Gallery the original sizes are not automatically compressed.

Check out some of my snaps here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ch-eeee-tos/

Cheers,
Ch-eeee-tos

InvestMent Strategies Warren Buffet Bets Upon

2005-10-20T22:56:00.000+05:30

One thousand dollars invested in Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway
stock in 1965 would be worth roughly $ 5 million today! This astonishing
success didn’t come through Buffet’s use of high-tech computer trading
models or intricate market timing systems. Instead, it came through his
stubborn adherence to the time-honored fundamentals of value investing.
The book, “How Buffet Does It”, is a step-by-step guidebook for investing like Buffet in
any market environment. This book presents 24 ideas Buffet has followed from day one.
Your reviewer enumerates below these twenty-four ideas with his comments for your ready
reference:

1. Choose Simplicity over Complexity : When investing, keep it simple. Do what’s easy
and obvious. If you don’t understand a business, don’t buy it.

2. Make Your Own Investment Decisions : Don’t listen to the brokers, the analysts, or
the pundits. Figure it out for yourself. Become a value investor. It’s proven to be a very
rewarding technique over the long term.

3. Maintain Proper Temperament : Let other people overreact to the market To succeed
in the market, you need only ordinary intelligence. But in addition, you need the kind of
temperament to help you ride out the storms and stick to your long-term plans. If you can
stay cool while those around you are panicking, you can surely prevail.

4. Be Patient : Think 10 years, rather than 10 minutes. Don’t dwell on the price of stocks.
Instead, study the underlying business, its earnings capacity and its future. If the question
is, “How long will you wait?” – “If we’re in the right place, we’ll wait indefinitely” says Buffet.

5. Buy Business, Not Stocks : Once you get into the right business, you can
let everyone else worry about the stock market. Business performance is
the key to picking stocks. Study the long-term track record of any company that
is on your buy list. Buffet looks for following five main things before investing in a
company.

Business he can understand
Companies with favorable long-term prospects
Business operated by honest and competent people
Businesses priced very attractively
Business with free cash flow .

Don’t think about “stock in the short term.” Think about “business in the long term”.

6. Look for a Company that is a Franchise : Some businesses are “franchises”.
Franchise generates free cash flows.

7. Buy Low-Tech, Not High-Tech : Successful investing is rarely a gee-whiz activity.
It’s less often about rockets and lasers and more often about bricks, carpets, paint,
shaving blades and insulation. Do not be tempted by get-rich-quick deals involving
relatively complex companies (e.g., high-tech companies). They are the most
unpredictable in the long run. Look for the absence of change. Look for the business
whose only change in the future will be doing more business, e.g Gillette Blades.

8. Concentrate Your Stock Investments A the “Noah’s Ark” style of investing –
that is, a little of this, a little of that. Better to have a smaller number of
investments with more of your money in each. Portfolio concentration – the
opposite of diversification – also has the power to focus the mind. If you’re
putting your eggs in only a few baskets, you’re far less likely to make
investments on impulse or emotion.

9. Practice Inactivity, Not Hyperactivity : There are times when doing nothing
is a sign of investing brilliance. Be a decade’s trader, not a day trader.

10. Don’t Look at the Ticker : Tickers are all about prices. Investing is about a
lot more than prices. It is about value. It is about wealth. Abstain from looking
at share prices every day. Study the playing field and not the scoreboard.
Know the value of something rather than the price of everythin

Origin of the name Mitsubishi "PAJERO"

2005-09-08T13:53:00.000+05:30

For the curious, the Spanish word pajero means ‘wanker’, from paja meaning ‘wank’ (literally, ‘straw’), in the expression hacerse una paja, (literally ‘to do oneself a straw’). These slang expressions come from the fact that both a straw and the penis are similar in being pipe-like. It is the first meaning to come to mind to Spanish speakers in both Spain and the majority of Latin America.

Pajero has some non-rude agricultural meanings, referring to someone selling or transporting straw or (in the Canary Islands dialect) the barn where it is kept. These are the original meanings of the word, but not common these days. It is also an obscure nickname for people from Santo Domingo de la Calzada in La Rioja, presumably due to historical straw production in the village.

In the dialects of Nicaragua, Colombia and Guatemala, paja is used to mean ‘tap’ (i.e. the end of the ‘pipe’), and so, in Nicaragua at least, a pajero is a plumber, to the mirth of other Spanish-speakers.

However, none of these rude or innocent meanings gave the vehicle its name. There is a feline, scientifically classified as Oncifelis colocolo, which is known in Spanish as the gato pajero (‘grass cat’) or gato de las pampas (‘Pampas cat’). It is similiar to the ocelot and hunts small animals in the reeds and grasslands of South America. There are several subspecies, including Oncifelis colocolo colocolo found in central Chile and Oncifelis colocolo pajeros found in central Argentina. In this official press release in Japanese (media.mitsubishi-motors.com/pressrelease/j/products/detail310.html), Mitsubishi explains that they got the name for the vehicle from the latter subspecies, which they call by its short name Felis pajeros. The Pampas cat featured on the emblem on early Pajero SUVs.

--
Chirantan Mandal,

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Analytic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level. Reassimilate the passions from which the rational mind fled. - R.M.Pirsig

Esoteric Kolkata

2005-08-23T14:56:00.000+05:30

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity.

Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a

Maharashtrian city and (unless of course, you are speaking

to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence.

We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously. Tell a

Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways,

it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense

about being the nation's capital, about the international

composition of the city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean

that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of

techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how

Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.

But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about

is recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's

more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud

of the fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those

of the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden

passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere

commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation.

And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks

as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the

Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over

greed; the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain

with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth

of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all

other aspects of human existence.

That's why Calcutta is not for everyone. You want your cities

clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich

and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full

of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city

with a soul: come to Calcutta.

When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I

come back so many times each year that I often feel I've

never been away - I don't remember the things that people

remember about cities. When I think of London, I think of

the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of New York,

I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo,

I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of

Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of

Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the

greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial,

the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah

'Bridge'. I think of people. Because, finally, a city is more

than bricks and mortars, street lights and tarred roads. A city

is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget - or replicate

- the people of Calcutta?

When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would

grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change

my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about true warmth; about simple

human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions

and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too.

Coming from Bombay as I did, it was a revelation to live in a

city where people judged each other on the things that really

mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you

a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect.

I learnt also that if life is about more than just money, it

is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture,

about ideas, about art, and about passion. In Bombay, a man with

a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day

when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly

the same income will not know the difference between a debenture

and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that

matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers

and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world.

Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or

river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to

learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power

of poetry. And for him, religion and culture will be in

inextricably bound together.

Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in

Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say.

Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the

CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a

religions festival? I never know how to explain them that

to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting

Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little

to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.

The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal

converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of

being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in

artistic ex-pression and yes, the cult of the goddess.

It may be about religion. But is about much more than just

worship. In which other part of India would small, not

particularly well-off localities, vie with each other to

produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go

beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In

the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh

Bachchan, Princes Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would

children cry with the sheer emotional power of Dashimi, upset

that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the

whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat

their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of

the country - is so much about food, about going from one

roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails

the smells of cooking?

To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to

understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's

not easy. Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live

here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your

bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love

Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go

with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every

Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling

that'll never go away.

Edicts of David Kennedy: 'Get out and make things happen'

2005-08-04T11:35:00.000+05:30

Stanford Report, June 15, 2005

David Kennedy: 'Get out and make things happen'

This is the prepared text of remarks by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Kennedy, who spoke during the Class Day Luncheon on June 11, 2005.

I have three short stories, one historical reflection, one piece of advice and one translation.

The first story is about my very own favorite professor. And for that reason, it's autobiographical. When I was about your age, and graduation was approaching, I decided it was time to venture off campus and have a look around. And I discovered something that I want to share with you before it's too late: College was the easy part. Now it gets hard. I know college has seemed hard—all those papers and exams and labs and problem sets. But three things have made it easy: freedom, forgiveness and indulgence. All three of those are about to disappear from your lives.

Think about the freedom part. Consider what you're going to miss: no more mid-day naps, no more spring breaks, no more three-week Christmas holidays, no more three-month summer vacations, no more skipping classes when you feel like it, no more choosing to study only what you want, no more avoiding all classes before 11 a.m.—and most painful of all, no more daytime TV.

As for the forgiveness: Well, outside the bosom of your family, you will never again be in such a forgiving environment as the one that has nurtured you here at Stanford. If you oversleep and miss class, hey, just get somebody else's notes. Miss an exam question, just ace the next one. Paper no good? Ask to rewrite it. Course too tough? Take it credit/no clue. Flunk the course—or, worse, get a B-minus—just repeat it. Not prepared for the final exam? Get a doctor's excuse (or arrange to have a grandparent die) and take it later.

But out there beyond the Palm Tree Curtain—well, suffice it to say it's a jungle out there. Oversleep and lose your job. Turn in the wrong results and get sued. And just try to see a doctor.

And as for indulgence, let me tell you something: For four years my colleagues and I have been paid to read your papers, to answer your questions, to listen to your comments, recommend you for grants and jobs and internships.

No one will ever be obligated to do this again. If your writing is not clear, original and compelling, nobody will read it. If your comments are not trenchant and factual, nobody will listen. Out there in that jungle called the real world, nobody cares, nobody listens, nobody notices—unless you're really good.

So, I figured all this out about 40 years ago, when I came back from that expedition off campus, and I've never left it again. I know I'm sharing this with you at the eleventh hour, but I apologize for not being in touch sooner.

Now for a bit of historical reflection. It's customary on occasions like this for speakers to try to reach across the generational divide—to attempt to bridge the cultural chasm that leaves me unable to program a VCR and leads you to labor under the assumption that Paul Newman has always made salad dressing and that Michael Jackson has always been white. Commencement speakers by the thousands struggle every springtime to find some intergenerational connection—some element of comparison or contrast that links the historical moment in which their own graduation was set to the historical circumstances that will now face the graduates they face—usually by way of suggesting that back in the day the winters were colder, the snowdrifts higher, the gruel thinner, the hardships harder, and by comparison your lives are cushy and privileged and the road has been paved for you with the blood, sweat and tears of your eternally toiling forebears, and you'd darn well better—well, you get the picture.

But the fact is that my generation had the unexampled good fortune of being given much of our allotted time on this Earth during what the novelist Philip Roth has called "the greatest moment of collective inebriation in American history." He referred to that giddy, prosperous, self-confident post-World War II era when anything seemed possible, and lots of previously unimaginable things were indeed possible—like a college education for this grandson of a railroad section boss and a coal miner.

So I want to go back to a moment before both my time and yours—the World War II era—by way of suggesting something that's new and more than a little troubling under history's sun in this year of grace 2005.

From the time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well down into the 20th century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship were intimately linked. From Aristotle's Athens to Machiavelli's Florence and Rembrandt's Amsterdam and John Adams' Boston and beyond, to be a full citizen was to stand ready to shoulder arms. It's why the founders of this country were so concerned with militias and so worried about standing armies, about which Samuel Adams said, "A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people." It's why Franklin Roosevelt could boast about those GIs as "the greatest generation" who landed in Normandy on D-Day in 1944. And he said, "Our sons, pride of the nation … are lately drawn from the ways of peace … They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home." It's why African Americans were so eager to serve in World Wars I and II, to secure their full claim to citizenship rights. For more than two millennia, the tradition of the citizen-soldier has served the indispensable purposes of sustaining civic engagement, protecting individual liberty—and guaranteeing political accountability.

But today, we have configured our military in a fashion that has many of the attributes of a mercenary army. None of you is liable to the obligation of service, and very, very few of you will ever taste battle. In another era, exemption from that obligation would have disqualified you from full citizenship. Maybe it will yet.

To be sure, we hire what I call the modern American mercenary army internally (unlike the hated Hessians that King George III employed in trying to extinguish the American Revolution). But it is nonetheless an all-volunteer force that signs up for some mighty dangerous work primarily for wages and benefits, a compensation package that may not always be commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify. Now I am emphatically not impugning either the idealism or the patriotism of those who serve today. I happen to believe that the profession of arms is a noble calling. And I see no shame whatsoever in wage labor. But the fact remains that we have evolved a force that is extraordinarily lean, mean and lethal—and that has an unprecedented asymmetrical relation both to the world around us and to our own society. Now let me explain what it is about that compound asymmetry that I find worrisome.

First, the relation of the U.S. military to the rest of the world: By some reckonings, the United States' military budget is greater than the military expenditures of all other nations combined. That money buys an arsenal of smart, precision weapons and the skilled operators to fire them that can lay down a coercive footprint in the world larger and more intimidating than anything history has ever seen. Now, we believe that our armed forces seek only just goals and at the end of the day will be understood as exerting a benign influence. But that perspective may not come so easily to those who find themselves on the receiving end of that supposedly beneficent violence. Here, surely, is why so many people, even our sister societies in Europe and North America, regard us with wariness and apprehension.

But the second element of what I've called the "compound asymmetry" of America's military relationship to the world and to society, the second element of this compound asymmetry is even more troubling. It concerns the military's place in the larger context of American society itself—and here the historical comparison with the World War II era comes into especially sharp and telling focus. From the inauguration of the draft in 1940 through the second world war's end just 60 years ago in 1945, the United States put some 16 million men and several thousand women into uniform. What's more, it mobilized the economic, social and psychological resources of the society down to the last factory and railcar and victory garden. World War II was a "total war." It compelled the mass participation of all citizens and the commitment of virtually all the society's energies to secure the ultimate victory.

But thanks to something called the "revolution in military affairs," a product of the last decade and a half that has wedded the achievements of the newest electronic and information technologies to the destructive purposes of history's second-oldest profession, we now have an active-duty military establishment that is proportionate to population about 4 percent—1/25th—of the size of the force that fought in World War II. What's more, in the behemoth $11 trillion American economy, the fruits of which we all enjoy, the total military budget is now less than 4 percent of gross domestic product. In World War II it was more than 40 percent—a greater than tenfold difference in the relative incidence of the military's claim on the society's overall resources.

Now the implications of this seem to me to be pretty clear: History's most deadly and destructive military force can now be put into the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so—that force and that situation puts at risk very few of its sons and daughters, and only those who go willingly into harm's way. Our society neither asks nor requires any significant material deprivations on the part of the citizens in whose name that force is ultimately being deployed.

I believe this is not a healthy situation. It is, among other things, a standing invitation to the kind of military adventurism that the Founders correctly feared was among the greatest danger of standing armies—a danger that in their day was made manifest in the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Thomas Jefferson said of Bonaparte that he "transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm. Some will use this as a lesson against the practicability of republican government." Said Jefferson, "I read it as a lesson against the danger of standing armies."

I recognize that some, perhaps many, of you may find it offensive to call today's armed forces a "mercenary army," and I repeat that I am in no way impugning the motives or the loyalties of those who are currently serving. But they are surely not the members of the citizen-army that we fielded two generations ago—drawn from all ranks of society, without respect to background or privilege or education, and an army mobilized on such a scale that civilian society's deep and durable consent to the shaping and the use of that force was absolutely necessary. Leaving questions of equity aside, I for one cannot believe that it is healthy for democracy to let such an important function—the application of military force—to grow so far removed from popular participation and accountability. It makes some supremely important things too easy—like dealing out death and destruction to others and seeking military solutions on the assumption they will be swifter and more cheaply bought than those that could be accomplished by the slower and more vexatious business of diplomacy. And the life of a robust democratic society should be, in some measure at least, a strenuous life, one that makes demands on its citizens, especially when they are asked to engage with issues of life and death.

So let me turn to my second story, one that brings us back a little closer to home. It's a story about two people from Stanford's founding era. One of the great figures who taught on Stanford's faculty in the early days was William James, the distinguished Harvard psychologist and philosopher and the brother of the greatest of all American novelists, Henry James. Not far from this very spot, he once gave a talk called "Stanford's Ideal Destiny." In it he conjured a vision of Stanford 100 years in the future—just about now. He said: "Can we not frame a vision of what Stanford may be a century hence, with all the honors of the intervening years rolled up in its traditions? Not vast, but intense; devoted to truth; radiating influence, setting standards; shedding abroad the fruits of learning; mediating between America and Asia."

Now that spirit—so obviously ambitious, world-beating, almost immodest in its energy and reach—still pulses robustly on this campus today. I'm sure you have been touched by it; indeed, have contributed to it. It's among the things that make Stanford great and distinctive. It's probably among the reasons why you came here.

But another spirit abides here as well—and it, too, comes down to us from the earliest days of the university, and I hope it's one that we've managed to pass on to you, along with all the skills we've presumably imparted to equip you to be world-beatingly victorious out there in the fabled rat race that awaits you.

When David Starr Jordan, Stanford's first president, arrived in California, he took himself around the state to recruit students for the brand new university. In the standard little talk he gave, he did not dwell especially on the newness of Stanford, or its ambition, or its energy, or how it would equip those young Californians to make their way in the hugger-mugger Darwinian struggle of the frontier West. He struck another kind of note altogether—a note that sang of the values of serenity and contemplation. He spoke to those young people more than 100 years ago not so much about the necessity of making a living as about the importance of making a life. He talked about the value of the humanities—about what used to be called a liberal arts education. He put it this way:

"To turn from the petty troubles of the day to the thoughts of the masters is to go from the noise of the street through the doors of a cathedral. If you learn to unlock those portals, no power on Earth can ever take from you the key. The whole of your life must be spent in your own company, and only the educated man is good company for himself."

Now it's appropriate for us, I think, to remind ourselves on a day like this of both of these legacies from Stanford's founding. The one as much as the other makes up the essence of this place, and together they compose the gift that we hope you will take away from here.

My third story is very brief, and it leads to my concluding piece of advice. In those early Stanford days, in the end of the 19th century, it was still common, especially out here in the West and even more especially in the regions where the railroad had not yet reached, for people to travel by stagecoach. And most stagecoach lines in those days offered three categories of ticket: first class, second class and third class. A first-class ticket gave the passenger a guarantee that no matter what happened en route, he or she would arrive at the destination in good shape. A second-class ticket guaranteed arrival, but also provided that in case of difficulty en route—a mudslide that might have closed the road or a broken axle on the wagon—the passenger could be asked to step out of the coach for a period of time and wait until the problem was overcome. A third-class ticket carried the stipulation that in case of difficulty the holder of such a ticket would be expected to get out, to go to work with pickax or shovel, put a shoulder to the wheel and help to get the show on the road again.

Stanford is a first-class institution, and the sheepskin you'll be handed tomorrow is a first-class ticket to the rest of your life. My advice to you is don't take it. I don't mean don't take your diploma—of course you should take it. You've earned it and your parents would be aghast if you didn't take it. But don't take the first- or even the second-class route through life. Go third class. Don't be too comfortable. Don't be a bystander. Get out and make things happen. Get dirty. Put your shoulder to the wheel. Make the world move. And don't make the mistake of thinking that military service is something that can be safely left to the other passengers.

Finally, the promised translation. The document I want to translate for you is two lines of a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. She said:

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.

And be it gash or gold it will not come again in identical disguise.

Here's the translation: Carpe diem.

Good luck, and Godspeed.

Steve Jobs : Management of Self

2005-08-04T11:34:00.000+05:30

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky ? I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything ? all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Rules of Life : Quite Amusing, Nothing more

2005-08-04T11:33:00.000+05:30

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4.)

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Chirantan Mandal
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If there are no stupid questions, then what sort of questions do stupid people ask? - Dogbert

Smart Worker

2005-06-30T10:44:00.001+05:30

An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation:

Dear Son,
I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison.
Love,
Dad

Shortly, the old man received this telegram: "For Heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!!"

At 4 a.m. the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns.
Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what to do next.

His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad. It's the best I could do for you from here."

- Chirantan Mandal,
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The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. - Muhammad Ali

Nice Moral to a Nice Little Story

2005-06-30T10:44:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time there were 2 brothers who lived on the 80th floor of a tall building.

On coming home one day they realized, to their dismay, that the lifts were not working and that they would have to climb the stairs home.
After struggling to the 20th level, panting and tired, they decided to abandon their bags and come back for them the next day.

They left their bags then and climbed on . . .

By the time they had struggled to the 40th level, they had gone sufficiently mad and were irritated.

The younger brother started to grumble and both of them began to quarrel.

They continued to climb the flights of steps, quarreling all the way to the 60th floor.

They then realized that they had only 20 levels more to climb and decided to stop quarreling and continue climbing in peace.

They silently climbed on and reached their home at long last! Each stood calmly before the door and waited for the other to open the door.

They then realized that the key was in their bags, which were left on the 20th floor...

This story is a reflection on our life and times.

All of us climb the tall building called career . . . some till the 80th floor and some less.

But do we know that the key to happiness is in the bag, which has been left back on the 20th floor?

·Know your dreams and follow it so that you will not live with regrets . . .

·If the chariot of your life is driven by the steeds of ambition, make sure the reins of your life are held by the hands of joy.

·We are the heroes of our own story . . .

- Chirantan Mandal

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The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. - Muhammad Ali

Servant Leadership

2005-06-30T10:42:00.000+05:30

A couple of weeks back I listened to a seminar conducted by Microsoft on "The Power of Servant Leadership".

Here is the Live Meeting link to this recording:

https://www119.livemeeting.com/cc/marketing4/view?id=seminarbg&pw=650650&cn=servant&email=xx@servant.com&company=servant&fmt=lmm

The speaker was quoting Jesus, Bible, etc. but in a complete secular way.

Though I am not a Christian, I was amazed to see how effective he was in "absorbing"

the religious principles and able to apply it to practical situations like

Leadership without bringing in the religion itself into picture.

BODY LANGUAGE

2005-06-18T15:35:00.000+05:30

Body language comes across as a very powerful way of communicating. When it comes to careers, especially while attending interviews, every small movement you make will amplify what's going on in your mind.
You might unknowingly destruct your chances of getting the job that fits your profile because of faulty actions. Let’s look at a few 'wrongful actions' commonly committed during interviews so that you could try to avoid them the next time.

Interpreting your body language:
Your face is the most transparent medium in your body and every _expression will send out large volumes of signals, both positive and negative. Eye contact is another very important aspect. Always maintain direct eye contact. Fickle eye movements suggest insincerity.

However make sure that in an effort to maintain eye contact, you do not come across as offensive and intimidating.

Positioning your arms can convey confidence, arrogance or defensiveness. Use arm movements to emphasize your verbal statements. It will give added stress to what you want to convey without actually saying it. Here again make sure your arm movements are not too exaggerated so as to distract the interviewer.

Crossed arms, closed palms, and clenched fists etc send out negative ripples.

Here are some more interesting interpretations of the body language:

Chewing or biting nails/Patting or fondling hair/Fiddling with jewellery etc project insecurity, nervousness and lack of self-confidence.
Rubbing your eye, looking down and turning your face away conveys disbelief and doubt.
Stroking your chin, pulling or tugging at your ear etc indicates indecisiveness.
Tilted head shows your interest while tapping your fingers is a sign of impatience.
Pinching the bridge of your nose signifies negative evaluation.
Open palm symbolizes sincerity, openness and innocence and in contrast touching your nose or rubbing it in between a conversation conveys that you are not being true.
Rubbing your hands is a sign of anticipation while resting your cheek in your palm casts an image of thoughtfulness and evaluation.
Your arms crossed on your chest communicate defensiveness.
If you are aware of these body traits, you could use it to your advantage to evaluate your recruiter.

If the recruiter's eyes wander away in search of something more interesting, then it means that your communication is not up to the mark and that there is a level of discomfort.

If he nods in acceptance as you are conversing, it's a positive vibe and it also indicates that the person is listening to you.

Smiling also is a positive sign but make sure he isn't smiling at the wrong time, which could indicate a negative influence.

If the interviewer has his legs crossed with his hands clasped at the back of his head, its better you think twice before taking the offer as this posture exaggerates extreme arrogance and superiority.

Remember to be relaxed during an interview, your hands on either sides in front of you and maintain positive eye contact. Do not be over casual and lean right back on your chair, but position yourself in such a way that you face the person directly and show a keen interest in the opening and the company

The WORD

2005-06-14T10:29:00.000+05:30

The Most Selfish One-Letter Word "I"

Avoid It

The Most Satisfying Two-Letter Word "WE"

Use It

The Most Poisonous Three-Letter Word "EGO"

Kill It

The Most Used Four-Letter Word "LOVE"

Value It

The Most Pleasing Five Letter Word "SMILE"

Keep It

The Fastest Spreading Six-Letter Word "RUMOUR"

Ignore It

The Hardest Working Seven Letter Word "SUCCESS"

Achieve It

The Most Enviable Eight-Letter Word "JEALOUSY"

Distance It

The Most Powerful Nine-Letter Word "KNOWLEDGE"

Acquire It

The Most Essential Ten-Letter Word "CONFIDENCE"

Trust It

Vince Lombardi Quotes

2005-06-14T10:28:00.000+05:30

Vince Lombardi Quotes:
• "If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, "It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men."

• "In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail."

• "Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile."

• "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."

• "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up."

• "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor."

• "There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. I do, and I demand that my players do."

• "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm."

• "Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."

• "Winning isn't everything--but wanting to win is."

--
Chirantan Mandal,

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There's nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know. - Ambrose Bierce

Pune Darshan

2005-06-11T16:58:00.000+05:30

With Buddies at Pune
Thats Me !

'Yours Truly'

2005-06-11T16:56:00.000+05:30

That's Me !

Who invented instant noodles?

2005-06-11T16:31:00.000+05:30

Who invented instant noodles?
Man Quite an Eye Opener !
Sure Makes me respect those slimy things more ... a lot lot more :)
Cheers,
Chirantan

The fuss of Standard and Poors India rating downgrade

2005-06-11T15:44:00.000+05:30

The lowering of India's long term sovereign currency rating from BBB- to BB+ by Standard and Poor's opens up a can of worms for India's financial position . S&P said that the perception towards India's long term rating was below par. S&P also downgraded India's short-term local currency rating to "B" from the earlier "A-3".What does all these mean ?.Well, before all these one must know what is the Standard and Poor's rating all about and what does it signify. Standard and Poors is an organization which provides ratings and opinions about the capital markets.It mainly intends to quantify the creditworthiness of the players of the capital markets .S&P remains unbiased and analytical in disclosing the facts that make or break the trading trends across the world's capital markets. They provide the world's most reliable investment data,financial analysis ,creditworthiness ratings to all the potential
investors.The McGraw hill company traces its origin to the 142Yr old Standard's and Poor's . As on now Standard and Poor's operate in about 18 countries with 7 affiliate around the globe (including one in India).They comprise of over a 1000 analysts some of who are popular and respected investors and economists.

None of the S &P's rating signifies any kind of advice to buy or sell a particular investment tool either at a national or at an individual level. A respected outcome of the merger between Standard Statistics and Poor's Publishing, today S&P is the most respected and accepted
provider of financial statistics and data to the investors of interest.

Be it short term investment tools like equity or any kind of mutual fund that is aggressive or long term alternatives like government paper,corporate bonds,S&P rating has always been taken seriously ,if that particular investment option has been rated. Standard and Poor's has the most observed and commented United States portfolio index of S&P500 along with over $1.5trillion worth assets that have been indexed by various other indices . S&P has also been setting standards at various levels for financial sectors around the globe and also sectors like
Oil,construction ,software that have a close affiliation to the financial sector and the performance with in at the global level .
These set standards have also helped investors to be more focused in their investment decisions and accurately portray their 'risk-appetite' .S&P has been rating Bond transactions, holding companies and insurance.They have also evolved tracking mechanisms for the indices.
Standard and Poor's have been independent in their ratings ,they have no affiliation with any Govt. agents what so ever .The rating of S&P have been signifying the creditworthiness of the borrower This rating is devised on the information that is made available to them by the investors ,the borrower and the external 'prevailing' economical conditions.
S&P's , both the long-term and short term ratings is the quantification of the capability of the borrower to repay in the specified timeline and the notation just adds value to it.Alike the Indian credit rating firm 'Crisil' , a 'AAA' rating is the strongest which speaks the financial prowess of the borrower .A 'D' signifies the non-investment grade .Most of the S&P's ratings include a Plus or the minus sign providing the relative position of that which is rated with respect to other
rated instruments in that category. Hence a positive suffix would be that the instrument is likely to increase in creditworthiness and a minus means the opposite .

Given the fact that S&P's ratings are based on only those parameters that invoke investor confidence in transactions, the ratings reflects the position of the borrower in a rather absolute sense .All ratings are assigned considering all the aspects that define the creditworthiness - legal , past trends and other quantitative and qualitative measures .
The fundamentals are what that are used in quantifying the creditworthiness .
The ratings are assigned only after a thorough study of all the factors that determine the financial credibility of the 'client' , like the industry of concern, the fundamentals that drive the industry , the economic developments that can influence the creditworthiness of the country .
All the financial details (Public and non public) are considered in confidence and a team assigned to 'client' is headed by an analyst .The financial behavior of the company in terms of the kind of investments they consider to maintain liquidity and long-term stability in the company is considered .Also ,the management policies that the company adapts ,the
technological changes and the company'sstrategies to match up to them are also taken while calibrating. The issue does not end after a rating is done It is also reviewed as and when the conditions that effect the same are reviewed. A credit watch listing is prepared that is to be tracked and the analysis for the re-rating is undertaken .The 'client' keeps S&P informed about all the policy changes and changes in the way financial statements are prepared.

What happened in India?
Standard and Poor's had downgraded the India's Long-term local currency from BBB- to BB+ which in colloquial sense was equal to 'Junk' .They had also downgraded the short-term rating from A-3 to B .It was expected to effect the long term borrowing substantially but certainly not the foreign direct investment in India .With 3% of India's borrowing being comprised by foreign debt and 98% of the borrowings were done from within India.

To reduce the total borrowings government of India granted total freedom to carryon with pre-payments. Also that the fiscal deficit was more contained at the time of S&P downgrading as compared to the same time last year.

The Rating Guide
- AAA : Financially strong and would be able to meet commitments .
- AA : Very strong to meet financial commitments
- A : can meet financial commitments ,but is sensitive to economic upheavals
- BBB : Can meet the commitments but a little more sensitive to external factors
- BBB- : May or may not meet the commitments, almost of non investment quality
- BB : Would eventually become sensitive to extrinsic factors
- B : Extremly sensitive to external adversaries but currently can meet all the commitments
- CCC : dependent only on similar domain business opportunities
- CC : Highly vulnerable to all the forces
- D : Defaulted payments
- Investment Grade : AAA,AA,A and BBB
- Subject of speculation : BB,B,CC and C

Source : The official website The first two quarters also witnessed a good growth in exports, hence a good balance of payment position and an ability to make accelerated repayments to service the external debt.Also the Forex reserves were at a comfortable $62Bn .
Standard and Poor's has attributed the rate cut towards the increasing debt burden and also hoped further cuts if the reforms goes on in the current pace.

But, one school of thought voiced that the India's forex reserves was a record in itself if the economic and political upheavals were taken into consideration and also the fact that inflation was low. One aspect everyone was confident was that ,in order to increase the creditworthiness it was imperative to initiate faster reforms and quicker disinvestment .

The foreign currency rating still remains stable for India as far as S&P is concerned.
The fiscal deficit of India is actually a culmination of the state fiscal deficits .The downgrade would not effect the overseas business as the amount of foreign funds in Indian government paper was minimal and also that the rating on 8 Indian companies were stable(See box).

What about the markets?
The markets reacted by dropping 1.5% but gained later,the tech heavy equity dropped .But there was a fair amount of optimism considering the optimism of government being under pressure to disinvest smaller PSUs .The sensitive index of Mumbai was down by 0.9% settling at 3014 .

S&Ps eight Indian companies
- Indian Oil Corporation Limited(IOCL)
- National Thermal Power Corporation(NTPC)
- Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company(TELCO)
- Tata Power
- Larsen and Toubro Ltd
- Indian Railway Finance corporation
- Reliance Industires
- Power Finance corporation

Address By Azim Premji

2005-06-11T15:37:00.000+05:30

Address by Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Corporation, in the "Shaping Young Minds Program" (SYMP) organized by the All India Management Association (AIMA) in collaboration with the Bombay Management Association (BMA) on February 9, 2004 at NCPA in Mumbai on " My Lessons in Life"

Respond instead of Reacting: Azim Premji
I am very happy to be here with you. It is always wonderful to be with young people.

The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black, to salt and pepper and finally salt without the pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth. At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have leant along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your own career and life.

The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our strengths. From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping. You are anyway good at it. Concentrate on swimming." They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim? While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only our strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses.

The second lesson I have learnt is that a rupee earned is of far more value than five found. My friend was sharing me the story of his eight year-old niece. She would always complain about the breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally, my friend took the child to a supermarket and brought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious? The difference was that she has cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we only know the value of what we have if we have struggled to earn it.

The third lesson I have learnt is no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure. And if you do encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. Don't beat yourself for it or any one else for that matter! Accept it, look at your own share in the problem, learn from it and move on. The important thing is, when you lose, do not lose the lesson.

The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when you get so much in life, you really start wondering whether you deserve all of it. This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful for. Our parents, our teachers and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many people focus on the short comings, because obviously no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savor the memory of the good things while they lasted.

The fifth lesson I learnt is that we must always strive for excellence. One way of achieving excellence is by looking at those better than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But excellence cannot be imposed from the outside. We must also feel the need from within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul. Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the inspiring lines of a poem which says that your reach must always exceed your grasp. That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.

The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in the face of adversity. It comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me. His eight-year old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don't you just give up? I don't think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day." The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!" If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem into its perspective.

The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhi often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze. You must define what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity, consideration and humility have survived for generations. Values are not in the words used to describe them as much as in the simple acts. At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than the achievements. Because it is the means of achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make you lose your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination.

And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even if everyone tells us that we are wrong. There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer. Every morning, the Customer would walk by, refuse to return the greeting, grab the paper off the shelf and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say, "Thank you, Sir." One day, the vendor's assistant asked him, "Why are you always so polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don't you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The vendor smiled and replied, "He can't help being rude and I can't help being polite. Why should I let his rude behavior dictate my politeness?

In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was many times, a rebel without a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers! Ultimately, we must learn to respond instead of reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other person wants us to do. I wish you all the best in your life and career.

I hope you achieve success in whatever way you define it and what gives you the maximum happiness in life.

Remember,
Those who win are those who believe they can.

Lets start with Who am I !

2005-06-11T15:16:00.000+05:30

Hi ,
Its truly perplexing when I am asked to describe myself. Its like this, I am more like cipher, am in constant pursuit of making some sense out of myself . Had you known me any better you could not have agreed with me any more than what you do now; Puzzled? See what I mean!
But hey, I am not a number crunching neo-nazi weirdo all the same. I am a Bong from Delhi. Computer science did little to soothen my senses so I am now working in an american software consulting firm in Southern India. Not that it help much, I think.
Music is better alternative according to me. I really indulge in it fathoms deep.
you might be tempted to call me a pop-blue lover if you observe me on periphery , however in depth analysis reveals a craze for techno , alternative fusion , rock and Jazz. So tthat means all except metal & Heavy metal.
My hobbies are observing people and doing analysis. Comes close second is INVESTMENT ANALYSIS & BUSINESS FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS . Business esp. ones done with panache and elegance really amazes me.
I have this amongst my objectives in life , that I will help people do away with the connotation that you cannot do good business without giving the other person a bad deal !
Win - Win is my kindda trade !

Keep Rocking in the FREE World (as long as it lasts )
Cheers ,
Cheetos

PS : All my friends call me CHEETOS