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Showing posts with the label Rambling-Rant

From Heathrow ...

Yes Sir .... I am blogging right from the Heathrow Airport Terminal 4, London. My flight is in another 2 hours and I had time to kill - spotted this internet kiosk and thought ... why not?? So here I am blogging right from the airport - in my final moments in the UK. I have 2 parts to narrate .... A. Service Levels in British Airways If anyone ever tells you that BA or BAA (British Airports Auth ) are better than Air India and AAI - don't ever believe him. I had another harrowing experience with the UK airports (after my Swiss trip drama) today - though quieter minor. I had a bit of excess baggage for which I had to pay some charges - no probs with that, I was ok with paying. So the check-in rep told me to go to the cashier (on the next window), make the payment and get my boarding pass from there. When I went to the cashier window, it was closed with a sign 'Go to Ticket Window for payments'. So I went to the ticket window to find a 20 minutes queue ahead of me. When

Me, Myself and my alter-egos

Life sometimes seems very unromantic – especially when memories of past strike back, when you remember the romantic and naive dreams of your own childish mind. The child that you once were, resides within you even today – you think about that child, that adolescent, that sophomore that you once were – who dreamt of doing lots of interesting things, who was in love with his dreams, who worked hard not to get into the 'typical' corporate life but something larger than this, a more beautiful and meaningful future – a world where he could bring about that much needed difference, a world where his energy and enthusiasm was all that was required for success, a world where there was no room for racism, favouritism, greed, and personal conveniences ... Was there no such world ever? Was it all a screen? Was it just a fairytale? Is the child inside me never going to realize its dream? Is the adolescent never going to reach the pinnacle of his desires? Is the sophomore never going to be

Wild Ignorant West

Foreigners usually look at India from small windows to it - the most popular window being Bollywood followed by Indian Cuisine, (Western) Media and last but not the least Indians themselves (NRIs and PIOs). The picture of India visible to them through these windows is like understanding prehistoric ages from artifacts in a paleontology museum. This many times leads to funny perceptions - some of which I elucidate below. An African Indian colleague of mine is very curious about Bollywood. During a chat with him I exclaimed that Shahrukh Khan is from Delhi - he was nothing but surprised on hearing this. His immediate query was - When did he shift to Delhi? Me: He was born and brought up there man. Him: Oh! But I thought he was from Pakistan!" I was aghast! But he went on - So Amir Khan must be from Pakistan, right? Me: No dude! He is from Mumbai! Him: Then Salman .... Me: No Salman too is from Mumbai!! No Bollywood actors are from Pakistan-they are all Indians! Another interesting d

Ads based model: Not for India

Rajesh Jain points out a very relevant point of view in his latest post , that the Indian market is probably not yet ready for Advertisement Revenue Based Online products. I had arrived at a similar conclusion based on a very limited self-survey. I went on to ask many of my friends who used Gmail as to how many of them clicked the Ads that appeared beside their mail in the Gmail window. Most of them didn't even notice the Ads and not even a single person said that they clicked those Ads - however going by the revenue that Google gets out of Gmail, it seems that this is not the case with Americans or Britons. The India consumer is culturally not very receptive towards advertisements; add to it the small size of the broadband user-base in India, cultural reluctance to commit online payments and ignorance of lots of users - clearly creating a business based purely on a Ad based revenue model can turn out to be disastrous in Indian Cyberspace. However, companies like rediff, Sify and

The Apprentice on the ship

Wrote a Poem after a very long time yesterday - criticism invited. In a crowd of compatriots, he felt lost. Alone with his thoughts, his world and his plots. There was no storm to stop him No wreck and no deterrent Nothing went wrong, : : yet he did not win. He would win unhindered he had thought Dreams will float, on calm waters of opportunity. He had never thought, that there’d be no wind And no land, no coast, no seam On which he would set foot and leap to the sky Now there was just the ocean, and clouds of unfulfilled dreams. Everyone now, wanted to sail on the ship. A ship he never wanted to be, on forever “It would be my means to reach land” - he thought He wanted to be a master of his own island. The island never came, nor did he leap to reach the sky. The land of opportunity had vanished from sight. And he hadn’t yet learnt to fly. Other Poems on this Blog Random thoughts from a bachelor's life Life & a Dream Chasing Dreams Gush of wind Poem of the Lost My nation Bhārat

Who is responsible after all?

4 days ago 30 people died and 56 were hurt in a terror plot in Malegaon . And yet, the western media has reported little about the whole incident. The news has been underplayed to the extent that apart from the first outbreak of the event - no other information was given by the western news channels who were otherwise busy trumpeting the call for support for 'War against Terror' by President Bush. There were 2519 terrorism related fatalities in India last year; the numbers were 2642, 3702, 3973 and 5839 in 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001 respectively [ Source: http://www.satp.org ]. But MSNBC says that only "2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world since the attacks on New York and Washington" - does the world include Asia, Middle East and Africa? I do not expect the NATO forces to land into India and fight the 'War on Terror' - but by turning a blind eye to India's problems, by protecting Pakistan time and again from facing the wrath of Indian retaliato

Will singing 'Vande Mataram' feed a hungry citizen?

Javed Akhtar has very pertinent and sane advice for people loosing their sleep over singing of 'Vande Mataram' "....If some people don't want to sing the song, let them not sing it. But why waste our energy debating on it? We live in a democracy and should, therefore, allow people to exercise their democratic rights. ....A party with a strong political base should rather concentrate on other vexing problems. For instance, they should lose sleep over 105 farmers committing suicide in Vidarbha last month or children dying of malnutrition and not over a national song's supposed separatist tone.Instead of analysing Vande Mataram and going into hair-splitting details, they should take note of pregnancy-related deaths in rural areas, do something to eradicate poverty and the unemployment that dog the country. The politicians must not take people's attention away from core issues - they should not influence them to move away from the less privileged population of the

Kaam Roko !!!

I got this amusingly ridiculous forward yesterday .... Petrol in Pakistan Rs17 per liter Malaysia Rs 18 per liter In India it's 48 per liter Why this difference in Asia itself ? It has been calculated that if everyone did not purchase a drop of petrol for one day and all at the same time, the oil companies would choke on their stockpiles. At the same time it would hit the entire industry with a net loss over 4.6 billion dollars which affects the bottom lines of the oil companies. Therefore "Thursday September 22nd " the people of this nation should not buy a single drop of petrol that day. My response to it ... Growth rate of Malaysia 7.8% Growth rate of Pakistan 6.4% For India it's 8.2 % Why should Indian's alone work hard?? Lets all sit and relax in our home - lets stop coming to office, stop going to markets, stop buying stocks, stop earning bonuses .... I would have loved to avoid petrol on September 22 had they raised the cause of energy conservation or envir

Home vs Residence vs. Accommodation

Nowadays, I have been having trouble answering a very common question people ask me. Let me illustrate it through a dialogue: Mr. X: Are you staying in Bangalore? Me: (in my mind) Grrr ! I cannot be staying in Abu Dhabi if I have been coming to your office in Bangalore since the past 3 days!!! (aloud) Oh Ya! Indiranagar. Mr X: Own house or rented? Me: (in the mind) Is he mad?? Oh! Seems he was asking me if I stay in Bangalore (aloud) Oh! I meant I am currently staying in Bangalore but I am not a native. Mr X: Oh! So you are a native of? Me: aa…. (thinking) … I am from the Bombay Practice of KPMG Mr X: So, you are originally from Bombay? Me: (in mind) Grrrr … I hate this confusion (aloud) No actually I am a native of Bhopal Mr X: But you are a Maharashtrian, right? Me: (in mind) Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …. I hate this even more … (aloud, smiling) Ya! Actually ancestrally our family belongs to Maharashtra. But both my parents were born an brought up in MP – and so am I. (smile a

Maelstroms of the Mind

With little to do in Chennai, a TV in my hotel room, and bored watching the same debates on NDTV, I settled down to watching ‘Kuchh Kuchh Hota hai’ on Sony. Now, as all of you know, Bollywood Movies are made up 80% of emotional stuff. As I watched the scene when Shahrukh chases the train carrying Kajol away and tears flowing down their eyes – I reflected back upon the days when I was seeing my friends off about an year and a half ago. The real life, at least in my case, was quite a contrast to reel life as shown in such movies. Most partings were merry and we always parted smiling and laughing at the jokes we had cracked during our campus life. Did that mean that we weren’t sad at friends leaving for good? Or did it mean we did not love our friends? Well … not quite. According to me, in real life – emotions are the domain of the solitary mind. It is mostly when we are alone that we are taken over by emotions and philosophical thoughts. Emotions are seldom exchanged when people are in

Tagging along!

Manish tagged me ... so here go the 20 of the most filthiest kinds I have seen (not in any order).... Drunkards who drink all night and then drowse in the middle of busy roads early morning. People who keep on whinening about their job but do little to either change themselves or atleast their jobs! People who tag along with little known acquaintances for parties etc, just to be a part of free lunches and don't even bother to say a decent 'Thank You' after everything. People who force you to accompany them to the bar or lounge just because they want you to share the expense irrespective of whether you want to drink or not. Acquaintances who keep on complaining - 'Beta aap to hamare ghar aate hi nahi ho!' even when they know that you don't anymore reside in their city and come home just for a week or so. Relatives who ask you the same question - 'Where do you work?' everytime you meet them. People for whom a ticket to the west is the only proof of intell

The Iconoclast: Is Sachin really great?

Disclaimer: I am ardent fan of the Master Blaster and he is as much a God to me as is Big B or SRK. However, when the whole nation is celebrating Sachin's 35th century my friend Sharad persuaded me to become the Devil's Advocate especially by using all kinds of statistical tools from Microsoft Excel to MiNITAB picking up data from Wisden Cricinfo . But these are not my 'views' about the legend. Also note that the data below does not anywhere cover Sachin's bowling career at all. PS: You may want to visit < http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/glossary.asp > to get understanding of the Stats in this post. Credits: All statistical prowess, graphs, diagrams and analysis is due to Mr. Sharad Sharma - our Statistics and Quality 'bond' !! Yours Truly is merely a documentor here. Hypothesis: Sachin is not a match winner while chasing a score? Method: Annova ~ Box plots Indicates that Runs scored by Sachin are singnificantly different in case India Wins/Lo

First impressions of Bangalore

I spent the past two weeks in the Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore. I had visited the city about 10 years ago with my parents before it became the Mecca of Indian IT Industry. My experiences were quite different from my expectations. I had expected a newly morphed metro which would be extremely crowded, lacking roads/flyovers and bustling with night life. I found OK roads and flyovers in some parts of the city, bad roads in some others, lots of traffic & pollution but a small town at heart albeit a very romantic one. Night life is virtually non-existent with even pubs closing down by 11:30PM. While one would expect old Bangalore to have narrow roads but the city planners have not granted wider avenues even to newer areas. I wonder whether their visiting Mumbai (which is facing the problems of similar myopic development in suburbs) would help. But, old Bangalore is also dotted by parks and lots of trees and hence is quite a romantic setting. The cantonment which covers almost 60%

IIT JEE Changes wrongly interpreted!!

Read the post "Who Killed The IIT JEE" on Manish Chauhan's Blog The comments to this post are equally frustrated. I was more than surprised how all of these people missed and mis-interpreted the whole aspect of paper format. I am posting my interpretation which I presume is correct. According to the new format, the IIT-JEE paper itself will include "short write-ups on various topics followed by objective questions based on the write-up" which means two things 1. Students will NOT need to write any paragraphs or essays in the paper as is being presumed by so many people. 2. Students need not mug up or remember loads of information and rather need to further concentrate on building concepts. The paper will test how well they can answer questions based on their understanding of the passage given in the paper itself. Its a test of grasping power .. a very welcome change according to me. More so the changes are not proposed by government (unlike changes done by Mu

Katrina vs. Mumbai

A forward comparing Katrina and Mumbai Rains is making rounds these days... I could not find a better answer to it than the one Here http://chaoticmoments.blogspot.com/2005/09/just-adding-on.html#comments PS: I am in Hyderabad on an official trip ... little time to post .... hoping to post something as soon as I find time.

Sadak!

M/s Manhole Constructors Pvt. Ltd. Potholed Road, Pagdandi Marg Bambai The Commissioner Municipality of Poorna Dear Sir/Madam, Sub: Bid with reference tender dated xx/xx/xxxx for construction of Roads within Poorna With reference to your tender dated xx/xx/xxxx regarding construction of roads on your district; we would like to present our bid. The Municipality of Poorna City realises the need to build/repair the arterial and sub-arterial roads in the city. The construction is supposed to take place before the start of the rainy season. The roads to be repaired over a length of 42Kms had been originally constructed in 1942 and were last repaired 15 years ago. In addition, 16Kms of roads are to be newly constructed; they will connect the recently (5 years ago) inhabited parts of the city. We would like to offer our services for construction as well as repairing of roads. The roads will be constructed using – ‘TarSand’ – a proprietary mixture developed by our firm which comprises of tar

C O N C E N T R A T E ???

Mr. VK Pedia's blog , that I discovered yesterday has spurred me to post today again. Using the most solemn messages he has urged people to CONCENTRATE . I personally have always had problems with this word. When I was in class 5th, it so happened that my grandfather was reading a newspaper sitting on a chair beside me while I was reading my textbook. My right hand was simultaneously playing with a pencil. After 10 minutes, my grandfather could no more resist and remarked - "You can't do just one thing at a time; can you?". Years later when I used to study for my engineering entrance with Music blaring from my music system, he repeated that remark to my mom. And even today, while in office I cannot work with only one window open on my desktop. I usually will have a Yahoo! Or GMail window open while I am editing an official document and more often than not I would be composing a mail on these windows while I work on my document simultaneously. Multitaksing is something

Spirit of Mumbaikars !! Is it??

Media's over-enthused potrayal of a simple Darwinian concept of 'Survival Instinct' as the Mumbaikar Spirit has always agitated me ... so much irritating this term is to me that I could not even describe it in my own words. Thankfully, VKPedia has put his thoughts (which are the same as mine) very clearly - " 'To survive' is not copyright protected by the New Yorker or the Londoner or the Mumbaikar. It is the most basic of all instincts. In a life which is so subtly controlled by things beyond our control, this is what makes us report to work every single day. Volcano, earthquake or tsunami, I have some mouths to feed - at least one (my own). Not some media-devised snob value associated with living in one of the commercial capitals of this world." To read the complete post go to :- http://vkpedia.blogspot.com/2005/08/spirit-what-spirit.html