Monday, April 25, 2005

The Tied Rubber tube/Telephone wire made "ball" Incident and BOSE

Weird topic...I know...But when I was taking an evening 3.5 km walk alone to Hyderabad Central to buy BOSE, I saw nine guys engaging in a entertaining activity that held my attention for 10 mins....and anything that is worth my attention is worth a blog entry...Ofcourse there are other thins also that mite be discussed in this entry...

Back to the Small black ball incident...The location was a small mud shuttle court thats jus in the entry area of a road side park in SriNagar colony.....Nine small bags were hangin in trees that shelter that area from the sun durin daytime but ....the time was 6.15 in the evenin and the trees' primary role was to be a holder for all the bags of our protagonists....the nine guys were standin in a circle and a small black ball made of telephone wire/rubber tube was the object of their and a whole lot of "watchers from the sidelines'" attention....and man were they talented....
kickin the ball to each other and keepin the ball in "play", their ball skills were downright amazing.....One fella particularly was dexterous in the way he received the ball with his stomach area and nursed it like a baby before transfering it to the back of his leg and kicking it precisely to the person he intended...all of them were born entertainers and yours truly had a great time seeing the guys enjoy the game and the attention they were getting....But boy these guys deserve their place under the sun....

Bose was purchased finally...(Girish was particularly particular that I buy the album) and man it's one of the albums of the year....
Aazadi...is absolutely the patriotic song of the year...The orchestral style "Jaya Hinds" are brilliantly supplemented by our man ARR singing his lines....Especially brilliant is the way he says "Lok tere ek vatan" and "Azadi" and "Lakhon dilon ki"....excuse me if the lyrics aren't spot on....
And one more song that evoked a "play-tears on the eye, replay-goosepimples" routine some seven times was Zikr...Again by ARR..man is he the FEEL singer.....Absolutely the man to deliver songs that have feeling...And the Allaah Hu....chorus and the mantraic repetitions are mind blowing...ARR and the lyricist Javed saab are absolute geniuses in complementing music and tune with rhythmic lyric...

Sonu was at his lilting best in his two songs and "Des ki Mitti" was brilliant and reminded me of "En kaadhale"....
Guys if you haven't experienced Bose yet....please....It's a journey into our Indianness...Patriotism as girish said is an even better feeling to experience than Love;)

Thursday, April 14, 2005

July 2003-May 2005 : A Journey

It's been a while since a very pleasant storm struck Girish's and my life....and We are sure that it's a life transforming bit of news..Girish and myself saw the gods granting us our long yearned for wishes - A seat in the IIMs and has it been a windfall...Girish has made it to the best of them all- IIMA, and yours truly will by his grace go to IIMB....I just wanted the "sinking in" to be completed before attempting a post..hence the delay...

It all seems like a blur- the years of effort, the disappointment of not making it last year, the pressures at work that almost made me stay in office the last 48 hours before the exam, a potentially dangerous accident that I survived with the least damage possible, the hours spent reading Business World and stuff I was totally unbothered or simply unaware of, the early morning 10 km drives in semi asleep state to the GD PI classes, the numerous chat sessions with Raama, the thousands spent in the phone discussing anything vaguely related to CAT and B-Schools with Girish, the hours spent analysing SIMCATs, the hits made to Pagalguy.com hunting down any bit of gyaan related to MBA, the pep talks of Hyd junta, the numerous times Self doubts almost got the better of me and threatened to consider calling it quits, All in all I must say God has been very very kind to me and that I am one of the most fortunate fellows on Earth...

It all started when on July 3 2003, My joining date at TCS got postponed from July 16 to October 6 and I was suddenly left with nothing to do for the next three months....That's when Raama and Kaushik Rajan asked me to consider preparing for CAT 03...Strange to note that this was how a passion was finally given the go- ahead....Something had always stopped me from writing or rather preparing for CAT....I needed that bit of "goof-up" from the TCS-HR to convince me to shrug off the laziness and put my head down....
For some strange reason, some one decided to cancel that CAT, which I had done very well ( infact that still remains my best ever CAT to date), and the re-test was a flop mainly because I just could not digest living away from my mother in Hyderabad when she was undergoing a surgery in Chennai....Well, No excuses but that's the truth.... and I still remember the LONG train journey from Chennai to Hyderabad after messing up that CAT on Feb 15 2004....BK and Vatsa were there at the station and I cried as much as I have ever...I still remember BK calling me from home that night and I spoke for 45 mins from the train toilet;)
Numerous mails, phone calls, and a needless depression later, I started to stop fooling around and face the truth and start all over again...That has to be the best decision I have made....God has carried me from then....May 04 - April 05...this entire year has been centered around the CAT...and I am delighted and thankful to god to be where I am....
Girish flying down after an MS to join my "dream chase" was a piece of magic that God decided to enforce....and our journey together has been as it always has been...
The moral of the story is something I have made a part of my Belief set...."GIVE 100% to whatever you do WITHOUT FEAR OF FAILURE"...It required this episode in life to reinforce that....

Sorry People if this was a bore to read, or too "me-centric" but I thought some readers might draw inspiration from an example of the fact that God's grace, a dream, honest effort and good guidance from family and friends can lead to that dream being realized.....

GOD IS GREAT...Hope he carries me in my future endeavours as he has so far.....

Monday, April 04, 2005

Animal Farm...Parable beyond compare

If there has to be a book that enlightens, entertains and keeps you riveted to the end that too in a matter of 100 mins and 120 pages...it has to be this book by George Orwell...
The best example to cite for "Short and sweet"...the same can be said of "Love Story" and "Alchemist" too...but this one has to rank number one jointly with The Alchemist...

People who know what it is to be in a work environ, this is one book that you can relate to, in every page and every little detail. Ofcourse, for the fresher too, it will go down as a very informative and will teach the keen reader some things to be wary of in the workplace...

What Power can do, and what egos do to an organization, and how the managers manipulate the workers, the power the voluble talker commands in any organization, and the naivette of the lower middle class....All these are brilliantly depicted in a fable par excellence...

"All animals are equal but some are more equal then others" - though this has been oft repeated...the truest truism of all....

How every noble cause is vulnerable to manipulation and how important regulation is and how dangerous over regulation is, the plus and minus of democracy, the leadership styles of managers, why a workhorse is called a WORK HORSE..Great for readers who like to go the inferential route after reading books..I would defly want to read it again and extract more gyaan...

Thursday, March 31, 2005

"Music" Reloaded (into moi life)....

Man..Life at home is different with continuous music in the background. No wonder I can't pat myself enough on my back for my decision to buy that CD MAN at last....Thanks to lesser work in TCS and a renewed interest in reading..I rush home to get hold of any piece of literature(The Hindu qualifies for this as well;)) hidden motive being - listen to the amazin music that I play on the CD Man....It used to be walk man before...but the continuity and quality has improved since Walk became CD....;)
Bryan Adams with his "Cloud Number Nine...", "The only thing that looks good on me", "Inside Out" etc and ofcourse "Summer of 69" is high on my playlist....

As far as Rajaa is concerned...there are some 120 songs from the 80s that are all Beauties...some chupaa rustums that I look for being..."Pon Maane Sangeetham", "Naan Paadum Mauna Raagam" and "Vaan uyarndha solaiyile"..

Out of the ARR wonders "Mudhal murai killi" and "Oru poiyaavadhu sol" were recent addictions...

Comin to Latest stuff...My respect and awe for Vidyasagar is growin by the day...Man
that "Vizhiyum Vizhiyum" from sadhurangam is abso-bloody-lutely the victory of good ol' melody....So too his "Konja neram" from chandramukhi....His "Vamba velaikku" from Ji had me dancing yday;)

Kaadhal and its "Unakkena iruppaen",Kaadhal theme, and ofcourse " thottu thottu" made me realize one thing...Haricharan is the next big thing in Tamil music...absolute bliss each time i listen to these three songs....Taht female harini sudhakar is very cute in singing that "Kaadhal" last line of saranam....

Among other favourites..."Kaadhal Valarthen","Kan pesum vaarthai", "ninaithu ninaithu" get the psycho in me going...Especially, hats off to Karthik in "Kan pesum vaarthai"...;ROFL remembering the mimicry session on singers that we had in Giri's place this weekend in chn....

So much for my Musi-Mania....and my musing mania on my musi-mania....
Suggest more such songs which i can load and enjoy my evenins....

p.s
Check out the side bar of my blog.,..It now contains the latest books I read...

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Sachin...Who are you?

As the little master trots towards his tenthousandth run i was tempted to take a tour down memory lane...I thought Sachin Tendulkar must have read "Who Moved my Cheese" by Spencer Johnson...Sachin merits being studied as a case in top b schools as an example of a successful professional who changed with the times...The causes that necessitated the changes being....Himself, his team, his fans, his opponents, his critics, and fate.... Change is a permanent entity and there is no one who is not a victim to change,...but whether all adaptation is positive is a question to ponder over indeed....
In sachin's case, A fast ferrari encountered a small traffic jam in a race track, and had some riding to do in a crowded street, but the changes made to the engine and the car were such that it drove the same way even after the track cleared and the conditions perfect for high speed driving. This sums up the effect of change on Sachin the master blaster....
With no offence meant to sachin, He needs to take a feather out of Sehwag's book and rediscover the joys of batting, that he gave to millions worldwide. Making batting a laborious exercise is a compulsion of lesser mortals, and they dont resort to it by choice, So when someone as ridiculously gifted as Sachin bats like a worker bee, it is a loss to world cricket...
One sincerely hopes and prays that once the self inflicted burdens of the 35 centuries and the Top scorer in world cricket are off his shoulders, he again makes a symbolic debut in world cricket and starts as he did as a cherubic teenager who was a stealth bomber with bat in hand. Setting and beating Records don't merit genius, but delighting crowds and scaring the s**t of bowlers requires GENIUS...and when a genius bats like a overworked factory labourer struggling to make ends meet, One can only pity the vissicitudes of the human psyche...
Sachin...You know yourself like the world knows you...That's what we all want....

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Life is Good- Tour diary...

Man...Spending the supposedly last three months of life at tcs is peaceful...the withdrawal process has slowly started...i have started to dream of life beyond the confines of the crowded cubicle and life beyond coding...well, there is a lot of unknown about my life in the b-school and am looking forward to an exploratory and insightful journey...BTW...
Yeah...I had been to delhi and mumbai for my IIT B and NITIE interviews..and more than the interviews i enjoyed the trips...man..here goes a tour diary...

Saturday 5th Mar....
Alarm set at 5.15 got up at 5.40 and pedal eduthen first thing in the morning..Great article on Budget in the bathroom....Then...Rushed in the bike to pick up my call letter from my aunty's house in sec'bad 20 kms from my house and realized i was running out of time cus it was 6.40 and i had to check in before 7.30 cus the flight was at 7.50....
finally i drove 20 kms in 15 mins...god saved me...was drivin at 80 mosta the time...but all was well...i made the airport after parkin my bike in her house and the auto guy was fast....
The flight to delhi was spent reading, finishing the last 100 pages of "The IITians" and devouring jack fruit chips that chaitra had got from her home town...Good book and great chips...
Rohit (My cousin, Jayant's bro) was in the airport in his car and we raced to their house where i idled the rest of the day...chattin and browsin...that evenin we went to a top college cultural fest where I realized that Bombay was not half as good as delhi in the ABI (Averabge Beauty Index).."Had a good time;)"

Sunday 6th Mar...
Got up reallly late for the interview...was at 2 pm...arnd 9 am i realized i had no SOP...so wrote one down in 30 mins and then read statistics in the car while goin to IITD...GD was more a parliament meeting and managed to butt in a few times and spoke well...
Interview expectedly was on Statistics...did ok and had meals in an IIT canteen...Man it felt good and i missed studyin in an IIT for the nth time...
That evening was non descript...and so was the night...

Monday 7th Mar
Got up late rushed for the airport and reached the boardin exit at 8.45 for the flight which was to leave delhi at 8.50...i missed all the buses and they had to drive a qualis to take me to the flight thru the runways...;) and after a round of apologies slept off the flight journey and was rudely awakened by the pretty air hostess Anne..she asked me to fasten my seat belts and prepare for landing...and at 11 reached mumbai..where my periamma had been waitin with the car....Went to their house...slept and arnd 3 pm walked out to have a feel of mumbai...
was damn happy seein the 100s of doves flutterin away to glory arnd a tree and a fence and inspired me to take a movie like Nayagan;) Mani touch na summaavaa...
Then browsed to post a comment on that;) and ofcourse went to eat Chaat...,and spent 2 hrs readin The Week in a park....Felt good bein my own companion and wanderin in the streets..After a temple visit after months....came back home to sleep and prepare for NITIE...

Tue 8th Mar
Got up reasonably in time at 6 for an eight am interview.and after a delicious aloo paratha breakfast which ate into my time....I still was jus in time thanks to a great drive by my cousin to the insti...Met Bk's cousin Bala there and had a good time relishin the feeel of bein the only 2 guys not in ties....After a good PPT by the NITIE guys and a Nice GD, had a long wait for my interview...Did some time pass with a tvm class mate and a few TIME batch mates...Interview was fine and rushed in the suburban trains to catch Balalee run thru the Paki tail....
Again had a flight to catch to Hyderabad...this time it was very irritating to see the plane do a girivalam around the run way for an hour awaiting take off...Finally wat was supp to be a 1 hr ride turned out to be a 3 hour agonizingly boring journey...and thankfully reached Hyd before the auto guys start askin for dugna lagaan;)
The day had a perfect finish with a telephonic crossword session with sab at arnd 11 pm...;)
All in all it was a nice tale of 3 cities and 3 flights and 2 interviews..and ofcourse ME

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Self Destruction Made easy...

An Indian urban youth with access to his needs, and with a bit of money and feeling of financial security inevitably falls into satan's most lethal plot. the last bit abt financial security is an optional condition...
Invariably he believes there is some one who was manufactured "customised to suit his requirements" and was hidden from his eyes for so long...and God deemed it appropriate to show the girl of his dreams at a juncture when he basically has nothing else to think about...;) Love is an Idle mind's greatest creation.... And a weapon of mass destruction which bull dozes many a budding career and truncates the stretch of imagination of many more....in a few cases it does manage to titillate and inspire though shortly...If god were to ever create a balance sheet of the good and the bad experienced by the head over heels lover....it would be ridiculously lopsided...and an idle mind and a young mind which otherwise unleashes great ideas also wastes hours thinking about bull crap...The key to the great indian institutions being great are that they load the student's with so much work that the mind wanders less and the careers hence meander less...
All the ABC College of arts and science devdasses bunk classes to make passes at lasses...Ofcourse the Five point someones from the IITs also are "Love Girl", she aint after me...so i want Grass" types...but the link among all these guys are they possess an idle mind which is an ideal environ for hell to break loose...
The movies glorifying the art of using the great young mind to generate trash and bull crap...are key players in the Catch them young..throw them down the drain phenomenon..
The great Indian college goer needs a better deal... India is lost in the trance that the internet and cable television has created...Our youth rarely have burning ambition and most achievers are products of the rat race and peer pressure phenomenon...The only burning ambition in the minds of most are to WOO an opposite sex human being....
Harmones rather than grey cells drive the youth.....That is god's mistake...But someone somewhere in power can do something to reduce the extent and frequency of the
havoc created...

India needs to grow as a country...for that the youth need to grow up and fast....