In thick of things

Only reason for my inactivity is that I am right now in thick of things.
I have been doing donkey stuff, which does have certain value addition but also gives a feeling that you have earned your salary for the day. When I began 5 months ago, I wondered whether there would be any serious activity in the Power Transmission sector but suddenly things started rolling when every thing else seems to be slowing. This clearly shows how decoupled I'm from the main stream business, it's seriously contra-scenario here.


However the decoupling is only till the point where white paper is involved, as soon as the time comes for the other paper (Indian currency is in different colors, so can't say greenback)things are gonna change. But you have to be optimistic till the time you actually face the situation, you can be prepared for the worst though.

Solstice this year will be held on 19th and 20th Nov and I am looking forward to meeting all my classmates again. While 6 months is not a long period at work, most people would have overcome the starting troubles. I look forward to listening whether the paid holiday syndrome is over or is it still on.

Meanwhile it would be interesting to see how immune B-school admissions are from recession.

The current financial melt down is going to provide a new episode for "Commanding Heights." Uncertainty rules

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.

Movie Review - Fashion

It happened in the past and it happened again. You hear a lot about the Director, his past successes, see the promos and feel the new movie is gonna be a sure shot hit, you book your ticket and watch it on day one - phew, the movie is not upto your expectation.



This is how I felt after watching fashion. Madhur Bhandarkar surely did some research but the plot is not worth producing a movie on. While Priyanka and Kangna attempted to act, Arbaaz suited the best for his role. Photography is quite good but the script is loose and there is nothing great in the movie.

My verdict - Don't watch

Time for action

I have been postponing many things in life and i always postponed them saying that i will start working on them as soon as I finish this new big adventure (mainly with my career) I have taken up.

After writing the last blogpost, I felt it is time for me write down my goals afresh and start working on them on a daily basis. It suddenly occurred to me that I have no more excuses and that I should start working.

I am preparing my list of goals and would be working on them on a daily basis. Despite being ambitious, smart (in my perception and hard working (many others would agree with this), I have never worked meticulously; rather I focused on one thing at a time. But now I think I don't have that luxury anymore. Everyday is going to be important and I need to use the time productively to live a life that I would like to. The life I would like to live includes writing blogs and even books, traveling to different places, interacting and collaborating with people on different issues etc etc. Rural India surely occupies a large portion of my mind space and social business is something that I have been thinking from quite sometime.

One simple method to overcome procrastination I have discovered is to make your goals public and to make it really happen, set a deadline (this i have learnt at ISB). This is what I am gonna do from now on.

Happy Diwali to everyone. May the gloom of recession be overcome with the light of optimism

Let us Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty

If there is one thing that can separate human being from other animal species on Earth that would be elimination of Poverty.



Overcoming poverty is the first freedom that human beings would need to achieve if they have to enjoy other sorts of freedom modern society (supposedly) provides.

In absence of any other respective means, crime or politics seem to be the only way out of Poverty. This is reiterated today by Arvind Adiga, winner of Man Booker prize this year. Both the major forms of economy, communism and capitalism, aim to provide some sort of equality to all the people. One attempts to forcibly distribute the outcome while the other attempts to provide uniform opportunity for all.

So much has been said about the role of education to overcome poverty but it is a long process. And during this long process many will get crushed in poverty. It is very important that we as a Society should "Stand Up" against evils such as Poverty whatever the cause may be. Having been born in this modern era, every human being is entitled to live a respectable life.

Everywhere around the world, governments are trying to keep unemployment rates down but the cries of poor people almost always go unheard. Politicians try to manipulate numbers and statistics rather than genuinely work for the causes that would help the poor.

One of my goals is to build a home for those in distress, where everyone is welcome without any discrimination, where anyone can get their basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing fulfilled for a week and then further enter into a sustainable routine. I shall use all my resources to make this a reality and then duplicate this in as many places as possible. I urge all the readers to think about how they can contribute to eliminate poverty and stand up against it. Please leave your comment as a way to say that you would like "stand up" against poverty.

From this month, I am going to save minimum of 5% of my income towards this cause and would work few extra hours to increase this fund

Thanks for reading and contributing.

A major battle won - Update

This is in continuation with my previous post with the above title. I must appreciate the telecom major for accepting my input, with resistance from the front-end though, and them taking action.

Here's the proof of their action and their attempt to cover a mishap and convert it into something positive for them:

Recession Economics

Everyone is talking about financial crisis and the looming recession. However some B+ve thinkers have come up with research findings to cheer up people in this situation.

One such article talks about how people take more care about them thereby becoming more active and healthy. Another column writer talks about how trouble raises human consciousness thereby helping us to become united in the fight.

Reading all these and considering that the real interest rates are negative (inflation is more than risk free) I too started thinking that it is time to have fun rather than investing for future. All the I-bankers who must have amassed large amounts of money during the hey days should also loosen the purse strings and splurge and see if the economy will bounce back due to their increased spending.

Most of us don't get the option to choose a life style, instead we get drawn to a certain type based on what we see and what people around us say and then get trapped. This is good time for all those who thought they got trapped in a burning candle life style to get out and start a oil lamp life style.

It's time for everyone to read "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupéry and examine what their world consists of. It is time to weed out unnecessary things and plant things that you always wanted to in your planet. It is time to refresh/expand/explore your own planet and also become aware that each one of us is living in a different planet.

Another interesting thought I wanted to share is about insurance and lotteries. After a discussion it suddenly occurred to me that both of them can be classified as soci-philosophical instruments. By choosing to subscribe to these instruments, the concerned individual is ready to give up a part of his hard earned money and place it in the hands of fate, allowing it to decide how to redistribute the pool, funny, ain't it.

That's all for now. Happy Dasera to all of you