Live-ins

Hearing this word 'Live-in Relationship' often these days. It is first culture shock for me after moving to Bangalore. I am afterall one more pattikattan (in Visi's words, a Jakun) from the great mythical Indian culture. I see those people with an awe. Lets be practical in analysing this relationship. If all goes well and live-in relationship moves to wedding phase, then Ok. But if things didnt turn the way we want, the girl may suffer more than a guy from this relationship(means, the social respect for gal will get affected. Traditionally men respect were linked with career and power, so he escapes unhurt from these). Live-ins are common among western culture, which dont have much belief in wedlock and family life. But Indian culture is very much family centrered. Live-in will never ever fit in Indian culture.

 

Love was immoral act for my earlier generation. Now I call live-ins are immoral in this generation. Who knows? may be for next generation, these live-in relationships become a common happening. For sure, its a kinda culture shock for this Indian generation. Having taken a stance againt live-ins, if some of my fren goign to talk to me about their live-ins, I am sure I wont go for fight with them/advice them. Thats last thing I want to do. Lets flow with stream, Life may have a lot in store for us.

 

huuuhhh...you know what folks, I mulled into controversial argument with this blogpost. Here is supportive argument for Live-ins from my dear fren Barbie. Look at the comments of this blogpost for further discussion on this post.

 

Popcorn

Its ugadhi weekend here. Ugadhi is karnataka's new year. Happy Ugadhi folks! Why do festivals come, to give me a reason to travel back home. Hurray, I am using this long weekend to travel back to my home town (Mayiladuthurai, near tanjore, tamilnadu, India). I looooooooove my native place. Its a town in midst of no-where, kidding, it is serene town surrounded by villages with full of agrarian people. Especially the 16km stretch from my hometown to my native village, is a real bliss. Till horizon, you could see only green farms. The waves in the paddy field are such a lovely way to rejuvenate you.

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Time rolls again

After few months of rest, I am back in the preparation mood again. Yesterday I have joined TIME institute for CAT preparation. This time opted for weekday batch, and will be busy attending morning classes in weekdays for the forthcoming Common Admission Test (CAT 06) for IIMs (Indian Institute of Managements). Wish me good luck, folks!

 

I love the training insitute for the one and only reason, they maintain the tempo for the competitive exams till the end. These guys will make you hard work and plan you work. I am lazy bumm and unless join the courses like these, I wont put in a systematic practise. CAT is a wonderful competitive exam format in India, it is also love-at-first-sight. IIM profs plan a lot to bring the latent talent in people and handpick the smart brains of the country to give the best management education.

 

The first-look feeling of those training books made me workout some exercise in them till 1.00AM in night yesterday. (First day always go better, only perseverance is must for these works ;) Lets see I bell the CAT this year).

 

I have some more catchy plans for the summer time. I am planning to go for intensive dance training this summer. Swingers Bangalore going to organise summer camp with 20 days of training in HipHop, Salsa, Jazz and RockNRoll. The training camp ends with a stage show. I am planning to enrol for this camp.

 

 

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How my work should be

I was speaking to lot of prospective candidates for my video codec team in my company. We call it technical interview formally, otherwise I try to make it a casual chitchat on technical aspects. Next time you sit for an interview, listen to those people's reasons for job-hop. "I had been asked to do some junk program", "We have no clear work goal for future", some time funny reasons too "my fiancee is working in Bangalore, so I am shifting". Undoubtedly the top reason will be not-so challenging work. Retaining human talents will be tough tasks for all managers in a booming economy(like the IT and ITES scene in India now). So here are two my two quick points I could think on "how my work should be".

1. Motivating work: We give out our full performance when we understand why are we doing that work. Always quoted, Ants and squirrel work actively throughout the year. It is because they work to meet the needs for a lean winter period. Knowing work's objective will score first rank in motivation. If you are a manager and wants to assign a work to your team, then first speak to them regarding the objective and how their work will fit in the main mission.

2. Challenging work: The work that is assigned to an individual, should be well above his ability. Must be demanding one. People learn a lot when they get challenged in the work. And needless to say people dont move away from places where the learning curve is steep. So next time, when you ask your subordiante to meet a schedule: make sure that he cant finish the work within the alloted time unless he puts in some helluva hardwork. I did crib before when my manager given me impossible schedule. But no words can describe the proud feeling you get after finishing the challening task, and go to your boss and say "Dekho, Here are the results!"

 

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Fabulous Ad-World

Creativity in advertisements are always one-step-above-the-previous-year. I love all the advertisments with interesting ideas: Be it Hutchinson little Boy and cute Dog advertisment, AirDeccan's  Simplifly: with story of rural side kid and his father. I am impressed by this advertising world. As oscar is dream of all movie makers, Cannes Lion is dream award for ad world. In Cannes 2005 awards, three Indian ad world czars O&M, JWT and Leo Burnett had won silver lions. (I am eagerly waiting to see Cannes 2006 winners.)

 

Here is the winner of silver lion in outdoor category

The O&M Delhi ad for 'Art Centre'
(Click on the image for the enlarged picture)

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Dennis the Menace

Well, the title stand no way directly related to the content of this blog post. Is corporal punishment for kids by school teachers reasonable? what do Dennis-the-menace type naughty children learn from those punishment or do they really learn anything out of those pains?

 

Kids naturally tend to be naughty. It is proven fact the kid's intelligence is directly proportional to their mischief. Some school teachers chose to punish students to teach them how to behave. The necessity of those punishments are often discussed to arrive at consensus . Those discussion rose everytime when some breaking news of a kid getting badly hurt/attempted suicide because of those teacher's intimidation.

 

Big heart-burning discussions apart. Few lite stuff from my experiences. I was a silent mischief monger during my school time. I could recollect some instances where I had received bad thrashings from my masters. During my second standard, the science master was dare devil to all of our eyes. He used to tie two wooden rulers together to beat students. you-know-what, he beat students on hand knucles. I got his thrashing for scoring less marks in some stupid exam. Another master (one more science guy) used to bend index fingers backwards to max extent till we cry to him to leave. These guys would have spend a long time thinking on ways to punish students, I believe. I dont even remember the reasons why he used to do that to us. Even madams prove no good to those bad masters. My physical training madam made me kneel down in ground because I was playing with new pen during her talk to the class. Other than those pains, I really wonder did those incidents taught me anything useful. Even if those teachers wished to teach me discipline, a kind hearted approach would have won more applauds and my love. Now I remember those masters as devils rather than a friendly teacher. So high school masters, think a lot before you want to punish a kid for silly thing. Those corporal punishments are truly waste of your effort. You could think a lot to get those kid's love by innovative teaching.

 

popcorn: ohhh, I forgot to say an important thing. I want to start a school for rural kids later. Corporal punishments will be STRICTLY prohibited in my school. I will teach the faculty there on 'how to be a lovely angel to kids?'

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The Telegram Tag From Gp.

Inspired by Gp's thig blogpost

Sitting in office on saturdays is last thing I want to do. After heavy lunch, with very less work pressure on the head, Now it is time for creativity. Here is catchy tag from Gp with simple instructions. Frame short term sentences like yester years telegram which could bring huge laugh/ little smile/ or atleast grin in reader's face. ;)

 

My take on the tag:

- I loved her. Irony. I married her. ;)

- Laloo become family planning minister. qualifiation. 9 kids

- Minister instructed house guard. Be alert. Robber may barge in.

- I never seen my movies by Ultimate Star Ajith. (Neither do we)

 

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My office in Google Earth

With many a thanks to Google earth, Here are the snaps of Koramangala 3rd block (Bangalore) and my office .

 

 

More closer look at my office building

 

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Finesse hostile bid

Have you heard of hostile bid offer for Arcelor steel from Mittal steel? I am excited to follow the deal right from its start. I should admit that I am self-proclaimed fan of Lakshmi Mittal. The worth of the deal is US$ 22,700, 000,000. Any shareholder of the Arcelor can sell his share to Mittals at the rates fixed by his managing sleuths. Lakshmi aims to garner 55-60 percent share on Arcelor within three months.

 

Surprising fact is Mittal steel free floating shares on market is just 12%. Remaining 88% share is owned by lakshmi and his family. Net worth of Mittal steel is quoted to be above US$ 25,000,000,000 (Have you noticed the hostile bid is nearly 90% of Mittal steel's net worth). The fact is Mittal steels had never been a green field corporation (like our RPG group's erstwhile business style). Someway or other, they buy a sick industry. send their god-sent-angel managers to those industry and show a turn-around story to the world.

 

The finance deals of the Mittal steel should be an interesting chapter for management students in finance. I read about "virgin airways" Richard Branson woes with banking and finance earlier. Branson business would have been declared insolvent by his banker because of his financial crunches in early years in business. In Mittal's case, managing to hold 88% share in 25 billion dollar company would have cost him dearer.

 

Arcelor on the other hand has just 8% shares with the promoters. They scaled up the operation by rising money from capital markets for all along. Now the sparse share pattern had become their enemy. Anyone with money power can buy them through hostile bids route. Referring back annuls of Indian business history, we could wonder about Ratan Tata's concern to increase Tata sons share percentage in their entire business ranges. He had brought promoters share from less than 8% to 22% by re-purchasing. Capital markets offers easy finance option for the companies who want to scale up operations. But you tend to lose the ownership over your dear company when you accept more shareholders.

 

Mittal -Arcelor bid attracted lot of political dramas around it. Arcelor being french company lobbies around the world to stop this hostile bid attempt. French PM chose to talk on this issue with Indian PM Manmohan singh on his last visit. Mittal gets labour party and Tony Blair's support in UK and lobbies hard to beat french goverment attempts. French sting on their attack is ' how can we allow non-european company to swallow europe's steel giant?'. Mittal counter-attacks saying Mittal steel is registered in scandinavian country. We should thank Guy Dolle, CEO of Arcelor to give us a chance to see the interesting business acquisition of our generation. Dolle is said to have rejected Mittal's idea of smooth merging of two companies in a dinner. Next day after the rejection of offer, infuriated Lakshmi Mittal announced in public about his hostile bid for Arcelor.

 

 

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Tag of Small things

Tagged by Pon. Here goes my version of the tag.

 

Movies I would watch over and over again
Anbe Sivam (Madan's dialogues, I love those....)

Ghilli  (I am ardent fan of Vijay)

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (For SRK, Karan johar and lovely songs)

TV shows I love to watch
Just for gags,Takeshi castle (Pogo)

Kaun Banega Crorepathi (Star). Any quiz shows. Derek- O- Brien is my fav quiz master

My favourite foods

Rasam sadam with potato curry.

Double cheese pizza.

My Greatest victories

Never ever teased/ill treated anyone till now. I am good guy la.

Jack of all trades (dance, sports, travel, adventure sports...) ;)

 

Place which I love to the core

Bodhi Zendo

This interesting Blogworld

Things that I hate

The cities where people chose to cheat others to lead their life

Noisy city atmosphere.

Great Personalities I would like to dine with

CK Prahlad, management guru.

CK Ranganathan, cavin-kare chairman

YC Deveshwar, ITC chairman (there was a typo there, ;) thanks barbie for the correcting me)

Things I dream often

Dancing Salsa with my dream girl (yet to meet in real life) :)

I would like to tag

Please take honor of tagging yourself if you want to write in these topics.

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Listening to music sucks at times

I love music and kinda lend my ear to any genre of music -provided it sounds fine. Ohh, I listen to bad rocks which hurts my ears too. We have creative 2.1 sound system in home connected to the computer. Daily morning, after getting up from the bed, play the favorite songs in those speakers loudly. "Damn....goddaman those stupids" you should hear those words from our neighbours. Who cares?

 

Well, coming back to title issue, I cant do two things parallely esp. listening to music and work. I had seen people working madly with their earphones on and playing music all over the day. Had lot of frens who suggest me songs to hear during work hours. Seeing them, I got enthused to replicate the same. Never, never once I succeeded. After starting to work with headphones on, right after 5th minute, you can bet I will throw my headphones away.

 

Popcorn:

How much you get pissed off when a cow standing in mid of the road stops you from rushing to office? It happens in bangalore often. Just checked the statistics about their population. Number of cows and buffaloes in India is about 300 Million. Roughly, they are 1/3 of Indian population (1.06 Billion). God save democratic India if cows decided to take its rights and walk into roads. ;)

 

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Who gonna win?

On few occasions, we get chance to see the phony-competition between two rival standards. I am talking about Blu-ray disc (supported by Sony,Matsushita & Samsung) Vs HD-DVD (supported by Toshiba, NEC and Intel) fight.

 

Both work on similar principle -trying to write with sharper Laser beam. Using blue/violet laser, we could be able to write more on to the existing disc compared to Red laser used in DVDs. HD-DVD Rom can store data upto 15GB in one layer, when we go for multi-layer, storage can be increased to 30GB. Blu-ray storage is about 50GB for two layers.

 

HD-DVD is manufacture friendly, where any DVD maker could modify his DVD manufacturing product line to make HD-DVDs in less than 5 minutes because all technolgies remains same. Blu-ray disc has more data output capacity upto 72 Mbps which is very essential for High definition video playback.  First release for both products is May 2006. Battle gonna be fierce in penetrating the market and getting people's admiration first. Lets wait and see who gonna win the race. LG is planning to release player which supports both formats with less incremental cost [+]. Well, even though it looks playing things safe, but thats way to go in midst of the battle.

 

[+] You should see the rate at which news gets changed regarding this fight [Link]. This is kinda of hot topic in business in multimedia domain

[+] Happy Weekend folks!

 

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I love Crazy Frog!

 Yesterday my roomie brought the video of Crazy frog's world famous Axel F remix video album. I should say "Its love at first sight".  For those who dont know whats crazy frog all about: It is world's most downloaded ringtone with remix sound of two-stroke bike sound. The video of the ring tone shows an little animated character named "Crazy frog". See the picture. It has got big eyes with pair of googles and wears a helmet and unbuttoned jacket. It drives an imaginary bike, and so is its hands in position of holding two-wheeler handle bar.

 I tried to download the crazy frog ringtone from Airtel Live store. But sad they dont have mp3 version of the same. If somebody have the mp3 version, would you send it to me.

 

 Wikipedia entry on Crazy frog lists its history [+ Link]

 Wanna hear streaming version of the song. Clickme 

 

 

Here is part of lyrics of Crazy Frog Axel F version

 

A ring ding ding ding d-ding baa aramba baa baa barooumba ..Wh-Wha-Whats going on-on ....Ding ding
Lets do the crazy froogg
Ding ding A Brem Brem ..A ring ding ding ding ding....A Ring Ding Ding Dingdemgdemg....A ring ding ding ding ding...Ring ding..Baa-Baa..Ring ding ding ding ding
A Ring Ding Ding Dingdemgdemg....A ring ding ding ding ding....A Bram ba am baba weeeeeee...
BREAK DOWN!

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This is what I call braggin ;)

Here are few testimonials on me written by my frens in my earlier company- when I left that company in January. Though a bit late to blog those lovely words, it serves the purpose of bragging for the day. Just kidding guys ;) Never mind.

• First of all i like to Congratulate u .  I remember u helped me from the day of my Interview
   till now in all aspects. U guided me very well.I feel ** will miss ur presence.
• I think i going to miss one of the Best & Remember Friend or Younger brother.
  Life is always (missing someone & getting someone) pure random process. It shouldn't be stationary.Go ahead for ur wonderful feature.
  Our Memory always with us.
• When I joined ** you are the active member to help everyone of us (esp. when we r struggling in the beginning) and encouraged us. ur friendly
  approach made all of us to interact very closely with u. ur helping tendency and easy approach made u a very good friend for all of us.
  People come and go but only a few leave behind memories......memories to cherish and to live with and u will always be fondly remembered as a man behind it.
  Wishing u all success in all ur future endeavours.
• Hi anna...................
  I think this is my first mail to u and it happens to be my last mail to this id too............
  Any way u are one among my well wishers and I can't  forget u as u r my first guide in my first job......
  Thank U so much for what u have been.................
  And I wish U ALL THE VERY BEST FOR UR FUTURE ENDEAVOURS
• Wish you all the success in the world to you...
  Keep in touch with us always.........
• Though we didn't have much conversation,you helped me whenever i needed from
  you. All the very best for your bright future.
• The foremost thing in your which astonished me is your rate of Debugging!!!!. Really. Not only the speed, but also the logical way to
  approach the bug and solving it, was the first lesson I learned at **.
  Secondly, I found a very good dressing style in you, that too a pretty balanced one.
  I think your +ve is maintaining a balance in all activity which you do.Interested in technical,
  management, dance, etc. Giving importance to all  activities based on priority. In short versatility should be your +ve.
  The negative will not be a new one but +ve getting exaggerate towards to the left or right extream.
  

 

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Happy Holi!

~:: WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY HOLI ::~

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Miles to go before I sleep

My dear frens Gp and Kart are relocating for their career. Best wishes and Congrats to both of you folks.  Wish your career move gives  you new experiences and opens up whole new world to you. Dont go away from blog world for long time. Come back soon, till then we all will miss you both.

I love to quote lovely lines of Robert Frost which talks about all about those parting moments!

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
....
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[+] Congrats to Ghost Particle -Gp2006- on his new career. Wish you find your new job interesting and fulfilling. Wish you have internet in your new place too and come back to Blog world soon. Till then, we will definitely miss you Gp.

[+] Congrats Kart on your career move to God's own country. Dont go away from blogging for long time. Come back to Blogworld with your niche creative posts.

 

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Crash-2005

Review of best motion picture of the year- “Crash ” (Lions Gate),Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman, Producers. Stepped into the movie hall yesterday with excitement to see the best movie of the year. And no disappointments, no grudges in the end.

Crash's screenplay is the real hero. Has handful of characters, white attorney and his wife (Brenden Fraser and Sandra Bullock), black thief and his accomplice, Black detective and his lover, White man with his ailing dad, Iraqi lock seller and his family, Retail shop french man and his family, two policeman, black musician and his wife. Within 2 days, they all crash into each other and their experiences/expressions guided by their perceptions makes the story line. The main plot is twained around the racism and minority segregation. It potrays real life in LA-a microcosm of American culture. In talking about the culture and real life potrayal, I could see crash analogous to DBC pierre's booker prize winning novel "Vernon God Little".

With strong story line, no wonder it won three academy awards  for 2006: best motion picture, original screenplay and Film editing. Crash had also following nominations in Academy  awards, for supporting actor role -  Matt Dillon ( the police officer), for direction -Paul Haggis, for music “In the Deep” by Kathleen “Bird” York and Michael Becker,Lyric by Kathleen “Bird” York

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International Women's day

Today morning while I was commuting to office, I was waiting in Traffic signal before a Montessori school for Kids. A mother came with her kid to drop him in school. She left them at school gate with his bag and was waiting near the gate till her kid get into his class. Think she may one more software engineer like us who has commitment and possible deadline to meet in her office. Yet she chose to put all her personal work behind the scene and be a good mother to her kid and see him grow up as a responsible citizen. Thats the power of womenhood. That poignant scene left a nostagic feeling of my childhood. My dad and mom has done a lot of sacrifices to give me a good education and a competitive environment to grow with. Looking back on their life, they always run with the mission to give us (me and my bro) a good life and had spent nearly two decades with thoughts about kids alone. (Maa and paa, I love you!)

A lot of women sacrifice their career to bring up the kid during their formative years. All their decision in life will become child-centered. Its tough to lead a life without selfish interest and its really tough to sacrifice our life for someone's growth. But women does that, dows that with ease and that shows the power of women and motherhood. Until a girl come to a man's life, his life is meaningless. Cometh the lady and if she happen to be a great homemaker, then come the rise in the man's life.Thats one aspect of viewing of women, as mother.

Women goes a long way in a competitive industry environment. I always found my women colleague to be matured in decision making, yet she is emotional. No wonder Bharti televentures's manages all their customer service centres with majority of fairer sex and ICICI top corporate big wigs are women. World has come a long way and earlier we had seen women getting suppressed in their life. But the new millenia wont be the same. This is generation of liberated women who leads life in all dimension.

 

IWD Tag  from Ponnarasi and GP

About: My Mom

Two things I like in her:
1. Freedom which i got from her to take my decision. Never tried to push her words on me

2. Unconditional love and care. Great homemaker. My career growth has its root in her sacrifices.

Two things I dislike in her:
1. Never said No to my requests. I am a pampered kid in my home, u see! ;)

2. She compromised her career growth for my education. she avoided a lot of her promotion in teaching field because it may demand her to work far away from home

Two dishes I love her preparing:

1. Dal, Rasam, vatha kuzambu and Potato curry

2. Idli podi, we call it a patented one ;). We also call it akkur(my native place)chutney

 

[+] UN's webpage on International women's day mission and workplans. Link

[+] History behind Women's day, Link

[+] Happy International Women's day 2006 to all my fellow blogger frens.

 

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NGO- Non grudging organisation

During my course of interview in SPJIMR, we veered into discussion on NGO's work in India.With due respect to their works, I took an offsensive stance against joining them for my livelihood. Question put forth to us was: "In 2008, the placement committee in SPJIMR will stop inviting corporate honchos and only call NGO to campus for placmenents. If that is the case, will you opt to join this institute or not?". I said I will not go to NGO for my livelihood. I have my own vision and I dont want to be in draining side of resource, thats is NGO who need corporates to sponsor their program. I wish to be in corporate side which sponsor the NGO work.

Well, thats impression in my mind about NGO till now. On hindsight, I found NGO are the only things which work in India. They have volunteered to take a call to serve back their society. Its not a draining resource kind of work, but a real constructive deal. I am planning to put in honest efforts this month to understand some of their work, align with them if it fits my idea to serve society. I will write more on my efforts later also. Now time for action.

 

[+] I have found this link which lists all NGOs which are based in Bangalore, Karnataka. Link

[+] Tag for fellow bloggies, If you happen to work with NGOs earier and wish to show me that world, I am willing volunteer waiting to work with you. You could lead me

[+] Tag for NGOs who stepped in my blog, I am a go-ready volunteer who wish to work with you. If you need my service, I am willing to work with you to the max extent possible.

[+] Hope, I found this one from Barbie's blog. Real tear-jerking one.

 

one of my favorite quite from Zen world.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

The teacher does not come to those who need to be convinced. Let them go to the preacher. The teacher is for those who believe and are ready to take the steps to fulfill the promise.

I am ready for NGO work. Where is my teacher? :)

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