Well Well! Seems God wants my tastes to change :) After the Reggae session at the ‘Shaggy Show’ , today I had another tête-à-tête with Western music, this time it was Rock. And the pleasure was greater still ‘coz we were having this show right in our own NITIE-lawns! Prerana, out flagship event, is turning into a proper festival – Prerana Rocks! NITIE Rocks!! Rock is all over!! I have never liked any form of Western music. In fact I belong to the pool of ‘Jagjit-Singh Fans‘. But the past two experiences have started having their effect on me. When you see die-hard Rock fans dancing/jumping . . . synchronously and in rhythm, you yourself feel the heat. And the Music was heating me up as well. Especially the Band Xenon (there were 2 more bands – Sceptre and Method) was really good! Their music pushed the adrenaline levels high inside me. As much as I like Indian music, I felt a different nerve for Rock too today. These guys are really mad, passionate about their music. They play it with

The IM11 team has been the main reason for the success of MastishK. These people have worked really hard – all credits to them …. I am just a cog-wheel of the gears, they are the engine behind the Rocket called MastishK The specific credits are as follows (order is random, no preferences) To start with, Suraj , our central upload manager – a very efficient chap, hard working and dedicated. He was a major resource to us during the website coding. The homepage, the Registration and login areas and all other daily games were made by him. Without him we wouldn’t have completed most of the crucial stuff. And creditably, he even worked during his summers-placement process, and has always been the person whom we could rely on during constrained times. Arti – another dedicated worker! If you want to know what process ownership means, give a job to her and you’ll understand. The MastishK creative whiz, all MastishK wallpapers are her handwork. She also made sure that the Quiz runs everyda

MastishK has finally come to an end. The journey that started way back in February, through the months to October has finally reached a conclusion. This post is a thanks giving note from my side. Fully online games – the dream concept that I proposed to begin with has come out to be great success and has been appreciated across the nation today – thanks to all of you who helped me out make it a success. My first thanks goes to the Prerana Management Group for supporting the concept even at a time when it didn’t seem feasible. The support thereafter has been a big booster for us, and helped us concentrated on the quality of the event than other issues. Irrespective of the contentions that aroused time and again PMG stood by us during the tribulations. I once again thank them for the support. Next my gratitude goes to all my friends and team mates who made MastishK possible. To mention the names – ShoOOonya, Shubham, Kartik, Milind, Payal, Ashita, Sourjyendu and VAK worked as much o

We all have some goals in life – personal goals, professional goals . . . and for some of us even spiritual goals. But have you ever thought what makes us decide those goals? And how our life is dependent on some axiomatic assumptions that we might have made very early in our life? Let me explain. Suppose a teenager has a goal of joining the Army. From where did this goal come? Probably one of his parents or relatives served as the inspiration or may be a movie. Now, this teenager starts preparing himself for his goal. Regular workouts, practice tests etc. and so he grows strong and capable to join the army. And by the time he is to decide the career path for himself, ha has every reason to believe that he is 'made' for the Army. But it is actually like this – since he wanted to join the army, so he prepared himself for it – this is the simplest manifestation of the phrase “You are what you believe yourself to be”. Now, if this teenager was given an opportunity to go back in

From the day when I literally begged the Prerana committee for support to the online gaming event, to today when Mastishk has more than 11000 hits and beyond 2000 registrations – I have come a long way with MastishK. During the past 3 months I have spent numerous hours for making this event a success. . . and happily enough, the hard work has paid. But more than the satisfaction of having made it is my satisfaction of having learnt a lot from it. Take for example my understanding of SEI-CMM levels. I had read it in the course on Software Management, but I came to realise it lately, when we launched MastishK. As many times we struggled, as many times I remembered the definition of an SEI-CMM level 1 company. Chaos prevails, no processes are defined, success depends on heroic efforts of individual team members . . . and what not; each characteristic matches ! Talking of heroic efforts, I must whole heartedly thank my team mates from PGDIM XI (the junior batch). Without them this ev

If one of old friends or my parents are told that I went to the Reggae ‘Shaggy’ show, they won’t believe. I am not a die hard fan of western music; in fact leave alone being a die hard fan – I don’t even listen to western music – and amongst all Reggae? No way!! I have no collection of western music (hardly 8 English songs stored on my hard disk which holds 3.5 GB of music) and my listening of western music is limited to the songs I hear at parties or at my friends’ place. And you may often find me arguing in favour of Indian music to western. So when I first heard from Milind about the ‘Shaggy Show’, I wasn’t interested. Then one day we all came to know that Milind (a die-hard fan, according to me) wasn’t going to the show himself, because he didn’t get anyone to join in. Meanwhile I had been feeling the need to recoil myself, by doing something off-the-track, and suddenly this appeared to be a great opportunity! So when someone suggested that we – non die hard fans – join Milind,

After finishing my last exam, as I was walking down from my classroom to the hostel, I had a realisation of the green cover that I have been living under for the past 1 year. (btw should elaborate for benefit non-NITIE junta that 'down' is not figurative but literal – NITIE is situated on a hill and we literally walk down from our classrooms to the hostel) NITIE is a totally different world as compared to the surrounding Mumbai. When at times I get to the terrace of the academic building or the MDP hostel the scene is nothing less than heaven!! Green lush environs and surrounded by 2 lakes on two sides. The calm and serene Vihar Lake and the spawning vegetation all around! Among the hills we know lies the film city, but forest cover hides it. Far away you see some buildings. But this is just one side; move to the other side of the terrace and you see hills covered by thick vegetation, and the Vihar Lake beyond the hills. And a third side has the Pow

I had always thought that CEOs don’t have much to do except a few vision-mission meetings. But my opinion has radically changed during my stint as the Event Coordinator of MastishK. Its 7.10 AM, probably 24 hours since I last closed my eyes and have slept hardly 8 hours in the past 48. I have been working all the while? No, not exactly. I am not working per se, but if I sleep and stop taking account from my teams, they will tend to sleep at the wrong times and fail to deliver. Is it that all teams are working 24 hours? No again. They all sleep, but there is someone or the other working all the time. So I have to stay awake to be available for him/her. Every part of my body is feeling detached from the other, I can feel every bit of my backbone, and yet I can’t take a break. Dunno, if this is anything like the life of a CEO – but its tough man!!! MastishK is almost an organisation now with 30+ members, and so many other characteristics. Working for MastishK, I have realised a lot a

Exams are usually tough and taxing times, but this time around I found exams a lot more refreshing. I had been very irked about a week before exams .. loss of emotional energy and all that ..the reason was that I was bored, bored of the routine that I had been following for the past 3 months. We had been working on MastishK since the past 3 months and my routine was fixed… start the day planning for the next phase of the project or the days schedule… go to class.. come back sleep .. wake up and then start meetings which last till 3 AM and then sleep again …. We were living MastishK for the past 3 months, thinking about it day and night … it was taxing ..the mind needed change .. it took me some time to realise this … then one day someone said that he/she was getting bored of seeing the same faces everyday .. I wondered …I said – “this couldn’t be a problem. It never happened to me in my family. Then why here?” and I soon answered my own query … change … we are humans not machines .. w

After I made my last post. . I went back to the page where I had found the definition of emotional energy . . . trying to hunt around for solutions I found a very good list . . it enlists 8 knds of emotional crises that you may have and their solutions . . .I am gonna work to solve this crisis by tommorow . . .in case any of the readers ever feel the way I am .. come back to this page for answers . . I am listing the whole thing here for my own future reference Source : http://www.oprah.com/health/omag/health_omag_200301_energy.jhtml 1 Energy drain: Other People's Expectations Are you living someone else's dream for you? You're putting out energy but starving emotionally. The other person gets all the satisfaction. Energy move: Declare IndependenceYou bought in; you can set yourself free. No confrontation needed, just "I don't have to expect that of myself." Worst-case scenario: Someone who's not you will be disappointed. You will feel wonderful.