Last couple of weeks

I got to see how Delhi celebrates Diwali this time and I can say that it is a much bigger festival here than in South. Dasera is celebrated much better in South. Bursting of crackers started at around 8pm and went on till midnight.

I had four days of holidays for Diwali and despite all the planning, I managed to do only one thing - watch a silly movie titled Fashion. It was a welcome break however. Sometimes you just want to lie down and spend time lazily, it is a luxury nowadays considering that everyone seems to be busy and wants others to be busy too. In fact people get surprised when I say that I am able to restrict my office time between 9:30 to 5:30 except on few odd days. At the beginning of my career, I was in a similar situation and I was able to devote considerable time for my hobbies. I am able to do this again.

Another observation I made is that though some things such as, providing good service to customers are quite obvious as a customer but most service providers either forget it or don't get it right. I have experienced both Pizza Hut and Dominos service and I can clearly say that Pizza Hut is much better and will surely do well. Similarly I saw Meru Cabs doing much better than Easy Cabs.

After the B-school competition season, it is time for cv reviews. I have been getting lots of requests and trying my best to give whatever inputs I can. Those with interesting past-experience are the ones who find this process most difficult. Sometimes you feel why can't they look at me, talk to me and then give me the job. After all I am taking a bigger risk than the company in joining them - if I fail, my career will be ruined but the company can easily replace me, and if I do well both parties will benefit. However firms are more worried about many other non-sense parameters and the cost of observing your performance that they would never do this. All the talk of diversity, opportunity, risk taking etc by companies is nothing short of nonsense as they go back to their tradition of recruiting people who fit into a set mold.

Change is easy talk but difficult to implement. I have been reading a lot of books but a simple auto-biography titled "A Celebration of Youth" by Mr. Anand Mohan Lal has been the most interesting readings of all. There was no way I would have even stumbled upon this book had it not been sent to me by a friend of mine from Hyderabad.

Apart from the admission queries, cv reviews, request for a xxx report spam mails, there have been regular "I am getting married - invites" have been regular in my mail box. My Diwali greetings spam also got responses from old colleagues and friends, which was possible due to nice feature in gmail.

Weather in Delhi is at its best now. That's all for now.