The pursuit of happiness ...

Basic rules of bachelorhood

2011-12-27T22:49:00.001+05:30

This post was supposed to be published last year(2010) during this time. That was when I have experienced the so called bachelor life for the first time ever. I was in Bhubaneshwar for a few months and everything was kind of new... started jotting down few strange things (I felt strange) which I got used to soon !

1. Nothing is ur own... no , not even ur toilet soap :P

2. You can never sleep before midnight and can never wake up before sunrise !

3. Be prepared to open the main door at 2:30 AM

4. Prefer to live in the dark to go out and buy a new electric bulb to replace the old one.
5. Prefer eating sandwich for survival to cook or go out and buy lunch (particularly on weekends!)

PS: It was definitely weird but now I kind of miss that ! :-)

Biggest B'day party in HYD !

2011-04-27T09:07:00.006+05:30

Last Sunday, 24-04-2011, I have been to the biggest party in Hyderabad ! A birthday party celebrated by close to 45k people in a cricket stadium at Uppal, Hyderabad. Sachin Tendulkar turned 38... But SACHIN IS IMMORTAL ! As they say "age is just a mind over matter, if you do not mind it doesn't matter!!". This is definitely true in Sachin's case.. His passion for the game is unmatched...

Huge banners said it all... crowd cheered every run that came off his bat, yelled every time the ball went to him while fielding... gone mad for a few seconds when he fielded at the mid wicket boundary fence for a ball (I repeat - only for ONE BALL)... roof would have blown away with the noise made when he dived across to stop a single!!... sang birthday song... took snaps...

Majority of the crowd supported Mumbai Indians!! such is his charisma. I doubt if any other cricketer (or any other sportsman for that matter) has such huge fan following where ever he goes. Since I don't really believe in the existence of god, I hate when somebody calls him god. But yes... I do believe in his supernatural abilities & skills !! Really happy to have watched the master bat for over 8 overs and score 28 off 24.

A lot has already been said and written about this great man... and a lot more will be for sure in future... but, the more said, the less it will be !!

Anna Rocks !

2011-04-08T00:34:00.010+05:30

How many of you heard about Anna Hazare? I would be lying if I say that I know who Anna Hazare is before April 5th 2011 !! But, after reading stuff about him, I now feel he is 'something' !

Mr. Hazare (73), is now easily the most respected person in India (may be more than the likes of CWC heroes Sachin & Dhoni). He is much touted as the modern day Gandhi for his silent yet aggressive stance on 'Jan Lokpal bill'. As I write this post, he entered the 4th day of his hunger strike ( fast unto death!) at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Finally, somebody has stood on his toes to fight against the biggest menace for our society. Hats off Mr. Hazare !

Corruption has penetrated into the roots of our nation - from municipality to assembly and traffic police to CWG ! Almost anything (and anyone) can be bought these days - this has become a way of life (Indian life). The well known fact is people (specially govt. officials) do not move an inch if they are not bribed. Dozens of movies were made with corruption as the back drop... but we forget them the moment we step out of the cinema ! So much is being said all the time but hardly anything was done.

Glad that the youth of India is behind Hazare and trying their bit to change the nation. Overnight, this grandpa has become an icon (Note: By saying 'overnight', by no means I'm undermining what Mr. Hazare has done to this nation). Long live Hazare...

Peace out !

2011-03-29T09:43:00.003+05:30

With the much hyped Ind Vs Pak semifinal match tomorrow, it is going to be a record breaking TRP event for sure. Students are planning give the classes a miss, working pros are planning to bunk the offices, in fact our company is organizing a live screening of the complete match ! little to do with the associate's interest though (more to make associates come to office!! win-win situation u know :P)...

All most all TV channels have made any news/info related to this match a headline! How many of you watch 'Headlines Today'? well for starters let me tell you, this is the English version of 'Aaj Tak' (on a serious note, both these channels belong to 'India Today' group! & hence those similar 'malasa' characteristics). I have been desperately watching Headlines Today over the past 4days just to see if there is any other important news than Ind Vs Pak semifinal ! Believe me... there was none!(at least to Headlines Today's knowledge :P) Cricket is & was the only headline.. all their shows are filled with news, views & debates on cricket... shockingly they have started showing highlights of all four previous Ind-Pak world cup encounters! something which Star Cricket does!! Headlines Today for sure has become everything else except a news channel... huh...

Anyway.... with Manmohan Singh inviting his Pak counter-part for the match & Mr. Gilani gleefully accepting the invitation, the game is not just a game anymore. In the sense, we are again going to start the 'Peace talks', 'Cross border terrorism' etc., These two bitter rivals, who used to celebrate when something bad happens in the other region are showing signs of friendship again! Relations have deteriorated from bad to worse over the past 4 years or so, with a series of bomb blasts and the infamous Mumbai hostility event. But it looks like cricket is going to reignite the talks between both nations, which is actually good. Lets just hope things progress +vely from hereon. But deep within still every one has a pinch of hatred for the other nation! & it cannot be wiped off with just game called cricket.

I read an interesting article in the morning. All hotels are running full in Mohali and cross borders visitors(call them spectators) have no accommodation. So, people of Punjab have shown amazing courtesy & offered accommodation in their very own houses !! I was awestruck when I read this ! When it comes to patriotism (call it hatred for Pak), two Indian states stand well ahead of the rest - Punjab & West Bengal !! But this time around people in Mohali are really acting as wonderful hosts - Hats off, take a bow Mohali !!

Media termed this match as the mother of all battles... Yes, it is against Pakistan but the truth is that it is just another match & it cannot be deemed bigger than final. There will be only one winner tomorrow - Cricket !

M for Marriage !

2011-03-14T23:04:00.001+05:30

Over the past 6 months, one thought is drooling in my mind & it is about marriage. No, not mine... But people around me, colleagues I look at every day, friends who give me company on weekends.. every one, literally every one is getting married or at least thinking about it !!

Oh c'mon, I am hardly 26 and so are most of my friends.. few are a few months younger than me !! There are quite a few things that I did not understand so far in my two and a half decades of life. Marriage is one of them! What seemed fine till y'day changed drastically in less than 6months. 6 of my close friends got married in the last 4 months) and few more are in Pipeline. I'm struggling to find some proper company to hangout in free time. People who are married are busy setting up a new home... and people who are about to get married are busy going around their fiancees :P The only past time left for me now is to watch movies at home. Have to quickly find a way out to kill this boredom before it kills me...

Don't know what's happening, but whatever is happening not at all excites me ;-) am I weird or is it just the world around me? huh... what am I talking .. Good Night and Good Luck !

Bang Bang Begining

2011-02-19T22:11:00.003+05:30

Cricket world cup 2011 has just begun and the men in Blue have started in style. After the 2007 world cup debacle, this was like the 'revenge of the fallen' ! and the revenge indeed is sweet !

Sehwag did exactly what he said before the tournament begun.. he said that he wants to spend all 50 overs at the crease and he almost did so. Good for the team.

Anyway.. the purpose of writing this is to post something very interesting that happened a week back. A day before I returned to Hyderabad (approx 10days back), I was chatting with Nikhil, a good friend of mine, over the office communicator. His predictions are mostly fluke but they sometimes turn out to be bang on ! The topic slowly moved to world cup and I asked him to predict the score in the inaugural match between Ind and Ban ... below are his predictions...

India - 378/4 (50 overs)
Sehwag - 176

and today I wish I had copied that conversation ! damn.. he is again so close ...!! I watched the India innings at his place today afternoon and we both burst into laughter on many occasions thinking of the chat and predictions we made. He is like the Emraan Hashmi in Jannat !

Next match is against Eng and there is more than a week gap. Will ask him to predict that match... u all readers can 'bet' with his help. Good Luck !

FZ Vs A320

2011-01-20T01:09:00.003+05:30

The air fare from Bhubaneshwar to Hyderabad on Indigo airlines is close to Rs.2200 and the road distance is just over 1100 Kms, that's Rs. 2/km.

Now, in Hyd, I ride Yamaha FZ. It gives a mileage between 32 & 35. Ever since the petrol prices have been deregulated by the Indian govt., prices have sky-rocketed touching new highs every month. I have learnt that Rs. 11 is the total increase in Hyd in the past 4-5 months. Now, it costs Rs.65 /lt. That's approx. Rs. 2/km !!

This literally means, I am spending equal amounts to ride my bike and travel by air ! Mind boggling !!

Crazy 31st night !

2011-01-08T20:16:00.004+05:30

New year is something most of them look forward to. I am a person who believes that we do not need a particular day to celebrate and hence birthday's and anniversaries do not excite me much. I thought Dec 31st will be just another day for me and I was right till 10pm. That's when my room mates told me about the Puri trip ! On any other day I would have written it off calling them weirdos & insane. But, I sensed the thrill the trip has to offer and immediately said YES.

We are 7 now and they have already booked an SUV (Scorpio it is ! Muscular and Powerful and more than anything it is manufactured by our parent company - Mahindra ! so loyal my friends are !!) We started at 11.40pm, that's 20mins away from 2011 ! Bhubaneswar to Puri is close to 70Kms. We had to wish new year at a petrol pump!! stop wherever we see a light to check if coke is available (found one after half a dozen stops!), ate tandoori chicken in the car, made pegs behind the wagon ! & the FOG ... my goodness! it was so sooo dense, we had zero visibility at times even with the fog lights on! There was a moment where the fog reminded me of movies like 'The Mist' & 'Silent Hill', so scary it was at the same time excitement made us scream. The driver brought the car to a standstill !! This was the most intriguing part of the trip.

We finally reached Puri around 1.30 am only to see the barricades and police on the beach road ! THE BEACH is closed tonight ! But there is a twist in the tale here... the driver took us to the beach from another road. When we stepped out and saw huge sand art exhibition on the shore... which was closed as well. But we managed to creep in without waking up the artists. We saw the giant Santa Claus from inches away... in fact touched it!! it was monstrous... after examining it we made our way to the beach.

The beach was completely vacant.. like a private beach, absolutely deserted... and guess what.. first thing we saw over there is a abandoned boat!! may be the one used by fishermen... we jumped in joy and the into the boat. Then the scotch flowed out... we talked, gossiped, sang, discussed movies, people, cities, work and what not.

What if we could not celebrate the new year in GOA, we did the same at the beach but a private one :P Spent a good 3hrs at the beach and between 4.30 - 5am moved ahead to Konark, to watch the sun rise. The sun rise point was totally crowded at 5.30am. We did wait for half an hour to capture the sun rise, but our driver was in a hurry and continuously honking. So we had to leave the place much before sun came out. Again on our way back, the fog haunted us! similar scenes... in fact better since it was the dawn... zero visibility. Never saw such dense fog when I was in Hyderabad.

In all it was a time very well spent. Was the most memorable time in Bhubaneshwar....

Happy New Year !

2011-01-02T11:04:00.005+05:30

It has been quite some time since I last penned down my thoughts. Must confess that my interests are slowly changing! But Blogging is one of my favorites and there is no way I

am going to permanently stop writing. Once in a while I go into hibernation mode... but this time it was a lil longer. Anyways.. I am totally awake now and will do my best to provide justice to the writer inside me!! :P

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 2011. & Yeah ... any new year resolutions ?? mine is to stop procrastination :-)

Will soon post about my wild & crazy Dec 31st 2010 adventure! Signing off for now...

FIFA Fever !

2010-07-12T22:42:00.003+05:30

Was BLOWN AWAY by the soccer mania, completely !! Had a gala time for a month... never thought Football is such a beautiful game. Have to confess... I was never a huge fan of football... I used to occasionally watch it earlier. But as they say 'you are known by the company you keep' , 'being with a winner makes u a winner' ... being with my football crazy colleagues made me thoroughly enjoy the sport. Watching football (any sport for that matter) with a bunch of crazy friends is one of the best times u can ever dream off.

We all follow club football keenly. But the world cup has taken the interest in this sport to the next level. There are hardly any moments/matches that went unnoticed (caught the highlights if I had missed the action LIVE). My Football knowledge would have easily got 5x in the past one month. Add to that my company's name on the ad hoardings. 9mins of advertising in every world cup match !! whoahoooooooooooooo.... best feeling I ever had about my company.... believe me ... I wasn't this happy ever so far in my career so far !!

Last one week of world cup has been even more amazing ! Reason - Prateek was in town !! yes... just to watch the last 4 matches with us. Been to sports bar, had a wild party at Vibhor's pent house, Watched few sick movies, got drenched in rain almost every night, had to go to the office without taking bath !! :P etc.. etc.. etc.. All this has come to an end last night. There will be a brief pause now. EPL kick off in about a month from now... :) I just hope, professionally, things will settle by then. Fingers crossed /\ More updates to follow in my upcoming posts... ciao

A Joy Ride !

2010-05-28T20:21:00.002+05:30

For me, there were two much awaited events so far this year - KITES & AJAY's INDIA TRIP. (Un)Luckily both coincided !! I booked 3 tickets for much hyped KITES for the coming saturday evening on wednesday evening itself (@cineplanet).

Heads up - when we both go together, track record of getting things done smoothly is very poor.

So... saturday evening ... excited(not really, specially after reading reviews). We took our seats and the movie was just about to begin & .... & suddenly the screen has gone blank ! We thought there must be some technical glitch and movie will begin shortly & stuck to our seats with a fountain coke in hand. College crowd behind our row went wild - full of energy- each time a girl steps in :P The wait seemed longer than expected... wild college gang became calm, tired and weak... after 30mins, slowly people started going out(unable to bear the humidity inside - no A/C) ... we realized there must be something wrong. We trio followed them... moved out... only to learn that there is power but the problem is with the main transformer from where the power gets circulated!!! The F word came out loud :P Clueless... Helpless... people started queuing up to collect their (ticket) money back. Unable to withstand the crowd, we left the place without collecting the money.

Next Thursday ... a weekday... late night show... same place ... but different movie ... we were only 2 this time. After a lot of struggle we got our refund in the form of tickets to some other movie. We gracefully accepted as we do not have any other plans. Done with dinner, it is then 9:45pm... Show time - 10pm... we were just waiting outside for the gates to open.... and history repeats !! it's dark all around... again yelled the F word loud :P learnt from the security that this has become a frequent phenomenon in that multiplex !! It's 10.15pm now... we thought of calling it off... collected money back and thought of going to Prasad's to watch the 11pm 'The Prince of Persia' premier show. Prasad's is not less than 20kms from the place we are in that time. We have about 30mins to reach and buy tickets !! If we ride... with the kind of roads in HYD...I'm sure we can make it only for next day early morning show !!... I knew we have to fly to make it in time !! Challenge accepted !! I unleashed my monster bike - YAMAHA FZ... it was NH7 ... a heavenly stretch of 4kms... touched 100KMs/hr in no time :-) ... technically we were flying :-) what a ride it was :D

Finally we made it with a handsome 5mins !!! Ajay went to buy tickets... I went to park my ride. After all these efforts I got a call from Ajay in parking lot saying - TICKETS SOLD OUT :( never mind... I did not watch KITES yet... & tickets are available in plenty for this one :P we grabbed 2 and entered the cinema. This time no surprises... the show went on smoothly !! & interestingly it wasn't as bad as the critics rated... at least to me ! :-)

This ride will definitely worth it !! One of the memorable ones... tnx Ajay... hope you thoroughly enjoyed sitting on my pillion seat :P Sorry if the ride wasn't as sleek as it would have been in Abu Dhabi :P

Iron Man 2

2010-05-09T19:41:00.006+05:30

Iron Man - 1 was stunning & captivating! It was so sooo soooo well made... you hardly get bored. Iron Man 1 was in the league of hardcore action movies like Dark Knight & Die Hard 4.0 !! But it's sequel Iron Man 2, I'm afraid, is not that good - but, still watchable.

Robert Downey Jr. is simply mesmerizing with his quick & witty one-liners like "I have successfully privatized world peace!!", "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one", " I will formally apologize later" ... sorry guys, can't remember more... I felt the movie was a lil slow considering the benchmark set in the first part. The action sequence on the Monte Carlo F1 race track is worth watching a million times...

If you are a super hero fan, then you won't have many complaints. At the end of the movie you feel you haven't wasted money at all. It's much better than mindless, senseless & ridiculous movies of Akshay Kumar :P

Burger maniac !

2010-04-27T23:05:00.000+05:30

I thought if I don't post something today, I will not be able to post anything for another fortnight at least ! Reason: world cup T20 begins this weekend !! :P ... Was so busy following IPL on Youtube for the past 6weeks !

My passion for food has grown leaps and bounds in the past 1 yr !! Mercury is rising ... & so is my passion for burgers :-). Used to be a regular McD & KFC customer when my office was at Trimulgherry. Ever since that office was shut, I had to create opportunities :P, find a frnd or two to go grab a bite of the soft, delicious and yummy burgers !

In the past 2 months I have been a lil on the back foot when it comes to going out... courtesy - scorching summer. But, but, but, I'm making up for it by having at least one burger each day at the office cafeteria ! YES... we have got a mini 'Mongini's' stall in our STC cafeteria ! This burger may not be in McD or KFC's league... but its taste is definitely unique. Trust me, I had 12 burgers in the past 12 working days !! This stuff is getting on to me... Its a short and simple lunch and I'm loving every bite of it !!

Bring it ONNNNNNNNNNNNN !!

2010-03-11T21:38:00.002+05:30

Quite excited about this weekend... IPL begins, Formula 1 season kickstarts, Hockey world cup final and EPL matches!! It's gonna be a very hectic 2days. Invitation has already come from Durga Elite - Pent house for what is going to be a rollicking weekend!! To add to these, Ashok & Yadi are coming from B'lore & Bombay respectively as well... Probably this is the first time I am sad to meet my friends :-( I have already rejected Ash's proposal of watching 'AVATAR' in IMAX - not bcoz of time, coz it is f***ing boring to watch it third time !! To be simple & straight, I did not find anything spectacular about this movie... except graphics - which are appreciable. It is all hype, no substance at all. Sorry ASH.

Anyway... this week i am gonna race against time !! its going to be a litmus test for my time managing skills :P I shouldn't say NO anymore to anyone and still manage to watch everything LIVE !!

Just get a feel that CHARGERS are going to lift the championship trophy this year as well.... here is a logical reason - we are not playing in RAJIV GANDHI INTERNATIONAL CRICKET STADIUM/UPPAL STADIUM. Thanks to T-campaigners !! This stadium has jinx. DC has lost all their 9 home matches so far !! add 3 more to that list (Indian team too has lost all the matches they played in this ground so far !!) that makes it a full DOZEN !!!!!! unbelievable ....... home ground is expected to bring luck, but... it is the other way around here. Anyway... I'm happy that this season, no matches are being held in this stadium and at the same time sad as I cannot cheer for my fav team LIVE.

Wishlist for this weekend: DC must win both the matches, Vettel should win the Bahrain GP, Force India/Schumi should finish on podium, Karun Chandok should finish in points table, Germany should win the hockey world cup, Fulham & Hull city should beat the shit out of ManU & Arsenal respectively, Chelsea should win the game against West Ham reach the TOP of the table !!!! &&& I should also attend the 5hrs extended saturday's Informatica class + Hair cut + Sunday's gully cricket match + meet friends !!!!

I think I should skip silly things like taking bath, eating food, talking to parents, browsing, afternoon nap, etc..,

I know the list is huge... but so is the weekend !!!!!!

4 Adieus & 1 welcome !

2010-02-27T21:29:00.001+05:30

This FEB by far is the most action packed month I remember. I have bid farewell to 3 of my friends, my brother and received 1 friend!! Viru, Prateek & Sai have left Hyd chasing their their dreams and Vinay has come to visit Hyd for 3weeks after a long gap of 1.5yrs. Vinay went to US in Aug 08 for higher studies. He got placed in Cisco and have to report in San Jose next month. I know him for over a decade now. Almost everyone I know who flew abroad for studies have changed, & that is quite natural. But this guy is still the same - way he talks, walks, food habits, genre of movies etc., nothing has changed about him. I don't know how he managed but trust me, he is still the same.

Viru flew to South Africa for the FIFA project, Prateek left to Delhi - his hometown & Sai flew to UK to pursue masters.

Viru had 2 dreams (related to sports) - 1. to watch soccer world cup & 2. to watch cricket world cup!! He will live his first dream when the world cup begins this June in SA. Durga Elite is the apartments name where our gang hangs out every week. Durga Elite becomes a mini sports bar on weekends!! All 7 of us are sport maniacs. To make things even more interesting we play fantasy premier league !! The discussions usually happen on 4 important topics - 1. Sports(ranging for Cricket to Tennis, F1 & Soccer included !!) 2. CoRCC/Satyam 3. Movies & 4. Chicks !! ( 50 - 25 - 15 -10 respectively). Everyone except Nikhil is/was a part of CoRCC at some point of their career in Satyam. But, But, Nikhil knows equally well about ppl in CoRCC (no wonder how).

From this week, we are only 5 :( In the course of next few weeks/months this number might go down further as everyone is in queue to move out of CoRCC. Guess that's how life is ... addition & subtraction of friends on a regular basis.

Will for sure miss them :-( All the best guys...

Super Sunday !

2010-02-01T21:34:00.000+05:30

Last night we've been to Sports Bar in Banjara hills. I was the only teetotaler in the group of 7 !! One of the prime reasons of not being to any bars/pubs till now is that always used to think all bars will be smoking zones where the cigar smoke is more dense than the fog at Delhi airport !! Specially after Bar One nightmare, I thought I would never step into the bar ever. Contrary to my belief, Sports Bar was quite decent. In fact it is rocking !! Then I've learnt that all bars are not smoking zones. Good for me !

The occasion was ManU Vs Arsenal match. 4 for Aresenal & 2 for ManU & me as Chelsea supporter took a neutral stand initially, but tilted towards ManU when the match actually begun:P Idea was to get a balance (4-3). Anyway, it turned out to be a very boring match as ManU crushed Arsenal by a 3-1 & got close to Chelsea. Half of the Arsenal battalion left by half time as the scorecard read 2-0 in favor of ManU.

But the real fun began after the match ended... in fact an hour after the match has ended. We all were just done having food & saw a bunch of fanboys coming in to the bar at 12.30 or so... they too were a mix of Arsenal & ManU fans and most importantly they all were in a single group ! The losers (Arsenal fans) started yelling Arsenal, as a true fan stands by to his/her team. It caught the attention of rivals and IT all began !! IT refers to the verbal fight... the fight raged on, situation heated up when all fanboys gathered and arguing where everyone kept shouting and no one can hear what the opposite person is saying. I was a lone spectator watching it from a distance, sitting in a corner of the couch!! It was all chaos for a while... but everything seemed to be in control !! Arsenal fans started yelling the slogan 'ManU, FUCK U' & 'ARESNAL, HUMARE DIL MEIN HAR PAL' !! After an intense 20 - 30 mins argument defending their teams & portraying the so called 'cheap' tactics of the opposite teams, our group moved on. The good part of this fight is that no one took it too seriously despite consuming barons of alcohol in the past 3 hrs. Everyone was in good spirits !

In all it was a good outing... & I am not scared of going to BAR again :-)

CoRCC & Stupidity !!

2010-01-26T11:29:00.003+05:30

If I were to choose the 3 biggest mistakes of my life so far... joining CoRCC - my current workplace will definitely figure in that list !! I know I crib a lot... but people in CoRCC are no exception :P

Today, I will tell you something I am not supposed to reveal !! I am doing this because my frustration levels have reached an all time high, jumping all the barriers, crossing all the borders and breaking all the walls. As I write this, I now remember a very wise quote by Albert Einstein - "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe". This perfectly holds good for the so called leaders in my department. They became leaders just because they have spent a good solid decade+ in Satyam doing nothing! I am sure more than half of you hate your bosses... but I have been searching for a better word than hate now... much much stronger and preferably offensive word.

Most of the work in here is crap... no.... it's shit. Its of no use to anyone... It doesn't add any value to the system... not even a penny. In cost units the general perception is 'every penny saved is a penny earned'. CoRCC is a cost unit, but the general perception doesn't hold good here ! coz... this work is just created just to justify the fat packages of these certified assholes. No one really cares if all of us suddenly disappear tomorrow... in fact our stakeholders will be sooo soooo happy. Every boss in my unit is a certified asshole... after working here for 2.5 + yrs, now, I feel like a complete loser. The more I stay in here, the thought of a loser is reinforced :( & this life is definitely not what I have dreamt of in my wildest of the wild dreams.

Each day I look at the things and say to myself, 'it cannot get more stupid than this'. But I get proven wrong the immediate next day!! If you call what I am doing as MANAGEMENT, then, I will never do an MBA ! This place is filled with a bunch of losers... morons... & asses. As Aishik once said, this place is for people who want to retire peacefully, not for ambitious. Now the major challenge in front of me is 'getting out of this messy place'. For the past months, I have been trying everything that is in my reach but nothing materialistic happened so far. All I can do now is to keep my fingers crossed & hope for a better tomorrow !!

Happy New Year !!

2010-01-01T22:34:00.001+05:30

To the visitors of my blog (if any :P), I wish you a very Happy & a prosperous New Year

Number game

2009-12-26T10:15:00.001+05:30

Let me tell you upfront ... I am not a voracious reader, in fact I hate reading to the core. It makes me lousy, sleepy, boring & what not. Books for me act faster than the sleep inducing pills :P everyone in my family has this dirty habit of not reading much stuff. May be I have inherited his habit :P The only novel I remember completing till date is Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons'.

After hearing a lot from my office colleagues about Chetan Bhagat's new novel '2 states' I thought of giving it a try. Downloaded the ebook as I my track record of reading the books is very bad. Never finished what I have bought so far in my life :-( Many of you might be aware of Chetan's earlier works - Five Point Someone, One night at call center, Three mistakes of my life.... & now two states. If you observe closely, Interestingly, all these titles have a 'number' in them. Guess Chetan is very fond of numbers - an IITian, then an IIMA passout... So, I guess the probability of odds in favour of my earlier guess is 0.9 :P & his fondness for numbers reflect in his novels as well. Trust me, each page contains at least half a dozen numbers and in my opinion it adds essence to the book, makes it funny at times, makes it even more interesting to read. I will not be surprised if Chetan's 5th book has 'four' in the title :P

I am half way now. The first half of the first half (i.e., the first quarter of the book) is really really interesting, then the sheen is out after the characters pass out of IIMA....still it is a decent read so far. Would like to finish this book by this weekend & yeah... I feel very embarrassed looking at my reading speed. People in my office finished this book in few hours , a day or two !! can you believe it ? huh... and I am talking about taking a week :-( That shows how lazy I am when it comes to reading.

Racing God is back !

2009-12-25T20:39:00.003+05:30

I have been itching to pen down my thoughts on the mega/super/block-buster/ultimate comeback of Michael Schumacher aka Schumi :-) & finally here I am !

I was first introduced to this sport by one of my (now) old buddies :P Srinu way back in the year 2002 during the summer break. Though I haven't followed it much for the next 2years, it got on to my head in past 3-4 seasons. Having watched Schumi rule the world's most glamorous sport for few successive years, I couldn't digest the fact that he retired so early (early for me... as it was just 2 or hardly 3 seasons of Schumi for me).

His much hyped comeback this season as a replacement for injured Massa has put a smile on my face and I was on cloud 9. Believe me I was driving my bike like never before for the next 2days :P. But unfortunately his comeback hit the road block as Schumi was not able to get himself fully fit to race in such a short duration. Heart break for fans like me :-(

Never mind... I hope this time the plan will definitely materialize and I can see him on race track again ! But yeah... he will not be in REDS.. still... WHITES are not really bad. Once again ROSS - SCHUMI will spill their magic all around the world :-) It will be a cut throat competition next season as there are 13 teams and more than half a dozen prospective champions !! Alonso, Massa, Hamilton, Button, Rubens & of course the baby Schumi (Vettel).... Its going to be a cracker of a season. I just wish to see Schumi on podium at least once :-) If he manages to win the drivers championship(the chances are very unlikely), then, then there is nothing like it !! this come back would be considered next only to Lance Armstrong's.

The sadness of KIMI's absence this season is overshadowed by SCHUMI's come back !!

Hit the Top gear.... Go all guns ... Go Full throttle... :-) GO Schumi :-)

Just in case if any one of you is wondering why I am a crazy Schumi maniac :P Here is a factfile -> courtesy - ESPNSTAR.COM

25 !!

2009-12-13T21:22:00.003+05:30

Time moves so swiftly :(

I still remember those college days... catching the bus early in the morning, classroom noise, bunking classes, cafeteria graffiti, sports & of course exams..... memories are still fresh. Today when I look back, I just cant believe that its been 3 and a half years that i graduated.

I cant think of even a single thing that hasn't changed in these 3.5 yrs, so am I. Transformation from a young college grad to a professional (may not be a 'through' prof) hasn't been easy. Thats what u call 'LIFE'... may be way of LIFE, may be experiences in LIFE or may be lessons in LIFE ;)

Y'day when I turned 25, I've suddenly started feeling old!!!! I wish LIFE has something like 'backspace' :P 'Move on' with TIME =>

To Akki - u suck

2009-11-26T08:16:00.003+05:30

Posting this with a lot of frustration & disappointment.

De Dana Dan sucks, so is Akshay. The less I talk about it, the better it is. I thought this movie will be 'bad' ... but after watching the movie I felt the word 'bad' doesn't justify its quality. It needs something of higher degree :P worse, pathetic, ridiculous, stupid, absurd,ludicrous, farce, idiotic etc... are the correct words for this f***ing movie. The only good 'parts' of the movie are white doggy & Katrina, Cute & Sexy respectively :P.

Trust me, u've got something better to do than waste 3hrs on this. If u still want to watch this stinking movie, I advice you to take a Zandu Balm or some Asprin along.

Akki... get a life. Its high time... do something different. Learn from Aamir.

Best way to get out of boredom ?

2009-11-23T21:42:00.007+05:30

I've got a question for you... specially for people who are still single(with no GFs) --- What is the best way to get out of boredom when you are alone?

Well... each one of us probably have our own way of dealing with boredom. For example... my old & best friend Ajay 'dances' or rather say a mixture of aerobics and dance whenever he gets bored!! Vinay starts reading stuff online or watches youtube videos, more than half of my colleagues... (say friends at work!) spend time sleeping :P, the rest are addicted to Farming in Facebook (farmville) !! Mom spends half of her time watching TV serials :P etc... etc...

The known fact to most of you is that... I am single with absolutely no track record of having a girl friend(now, before you get me wrong, let me clarify - I AM STRAIGHT)... my only passion(s) in life so far are - Stock Markets(where 95/100 times I end up loosing money!) and sports.

I now have hardly any old friends at home :( all dispersed!! We managed to rope in 12-14 guys in office and play cricket every saturday morning at a ground that is 12kms away from my home!! As 8 out of 10 people say "My work sucks" and I am among those 8!! Below is my daily routine and I hardly deviate from this fixed schedule (MON-FRI):

Step in to office @ 11am
Login & read Online News, check stock quotes etc...
T Break @ 11.45 which most often than not ends up longer than a lunch break!
Check mails and surf for an hour or two
Lunch Break @ 2 PM
Pretend to be busy! for another hour or two....
T Break @ 4PM
Log out & Step out @ 5PM followed by gaming activities and swimming at club !!

Apart from this... I have got a lot of time to kill. So... I resumed my movie marathon! With Airtel broadband at home I can download a movie over night & with Vibhor in office - I dont give a damn even if my internet doesnt work for ages :P!! So... here I go "a movie a day keeps the boredom at bay" :P Last week I've watched at least a dozen movies.... I would have visited IMDB not less than 200 times!! Never slept before midnight!!

With my external hard drive full of movies, it is assured that I am going to get bored anytime in the near future :P LOL.... As I write this post, 'GOOD WILL HUNTING' is 70% done!! :P

& finally, this time on a serious note..... I genuinely feel all this needs to be changed for the betterment of my future. But, u know 'Old habits die hard' ;)

17K in HYDERABAD ?? !!

2009-11-02T20:58:00.003+05:30

As I write this post India is crawling towards the target of 251 set by Australia. Match is nicely poised at this stage with India at 134/4 in 29overs, needing 117 more in 21overs... thats close to 5.5RPO.

Sachin was out at 40 sometime back... which means he is just short of 7runs to cross 17k !! another feather in his cap. Next ODI is in HYDERABAD... this is where Sachin made his highest ODI score of 186* few years back against NZ. Hopefully he will cross 17k in his next match... HYD crowd will go crazy when he does that.

Back to LIFE !!

2009-10-26T23:19:00.003+05:30

Ever since Mahindra tookover our company, the focus is more on cost cutting & in that process the top management has decided to close few centers. So the good news is .... we moved out of the bhoot bunglow a couple of months back to a temporary location in Sec'bad and then now to ... probably the biggest and the best location - STC, Bhahadurpally!! STC is heavenly beautiful, peaceful & most importantly it gives a college kind-of feel :) very unlike the earlier 2 locations. So... finally I have reached the place where it all began 3yrs back!!

The only problem for most of them operating from STC is commutation, else... it is near perfect. My home is equidistant from all 3 locations I have operated so far (gud for me). Past 2 weeks have been simply awesome. Reason - we have a club in here! with lot of indoor games - Snooker, Billiards, Carrom, TT........... Tennis, Basket Ball.... club is the motivation for we guys to come to office every single day!!! Add to that a nice swimming pool!!! I wanted to learn swimming for a long time... :) so... we all jump into the pool at sharp 5pm!!!!!!!! ....... U must be wondering when we actually work :P The thing is we prioritize our tasks & play comes ahead of work in this list !!! Thumb rule -> "work less... play more" he he he he he & yeah... so far it worked fine :P

The only thing thats missing is my favorite sport Badminton :( ..... seriously wish we should have one. But never mind... STC still rocks!

3 cheers :) :) :)

Back from hibernation !

2009-10-20T21:52:00.002+05:30

Hey guys!!!! Long time ........... no see ?? :P

Ok ok ok... I am back in blogosphere again after a long gap (call it Hibernation). My last post was way back in Apr'09, that's approx 6 months back! Please don't ask me the reason for such a long break coz even I don't know! Believe it or not.... "I DON'T KNOW" (as most lazy bugs say) .

Got lots of stuff to share with you guys. So... keep visiting every now and then :)

Whom r u going to VOTE ?

2009-04-05T13:06:00.002+05:30

With elections in the visible distance the campaigning process is in the full swing. Roads are filled with traffic Jams as our so called 'Leaders' are delivering 'hate' speeches at every nook and corner of the city. Every junction has a check point with a police legion to check if huge sums of money and liquor kind of things are moved. News channels are telecasting LIVE speeches ! Half a dozen bizzare debates at least each day and these debates most often than not turn out to be a disaster. Political parties are spending monstrous money on canvasing. Actors are acting as the catalysts in this movement ! Billions of rupees are being spent in these months time.....

I am 24 & this is the first time I am going to vote ! I have applied for the voter card last time around but I guess no one cared to gimme one :-( My name in the current voter card is filled with blunders which I cannot even explain. So I suspect even this time It might get a little difficult for me to VOTE. But lets try :-) I am not so excited ;) several reasons.... I dont think anyone who is going to reign for the next 5 years(hopefully) is going to make much of a difference in our lives(I hope I am wrong).

I have made up my mind that I will vote for Jai Prakash Narayan's Lok Satta party(Not a huge fan of his) At least they are not spending money as other parties do :-) and more than anything else the degree of non-sense talks is low.

Rise of the Phoenix

2009-03-28T16:51:00.006+05:30

F1 season has begun!

If at all you are a follower of F1, you might be aware that Honda has opted out of F1 because of slowdown. The axe was hanging on the necks of almost all its employees specially the two drivers of Honda F1 20

08 season - Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Ever since this news was officially out way back in Nov 08 it was a huge suspense whether someone is going to buy this team. There were few rumors of takeover by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and the Virgin head Richard Branson. Finally late february or so it was announced that Ross Brawn (former Ferrari principal also Ho

nda F1's 2008) has

bought it and the team will be renamed Brawn GP ! Finally a sigh of relief for Button and Barri

chello. A new team was formed overnight with the old management..... remember there are hardly any changes in the team except its name. Ross Brawn is an innate talent in F1 history. Having worked with teams like Benneton, Ferrari he has a huge experience

in racing. He is also considered to be the brain behind the 7 time world champion Schummi !

Till y'day morning the fate of Brawn GP was still unclear. No one even knew whether they are participating in this season. Brawn has made an official statement y'day before Friday' practise that

they WILL race this season ! But they dont have an

y sponsors yet :-( They had real tough times and even tough times ahead.... hey wait .... here comes the flamboyant Richard Branson. Virgin became the major sponsor for Brawn and even the label of Virgin was imprinte

d on the car y'day night !! and today morning it was the Aus GP qualifying session !

Guess what made me write all this stuff ? Today's qualifying was dominated by BRAWN drivers - Button and Rubens ! In what was amazing qualifying BRAWN made it up 1, 2 wh

ich means they are going to race tomorrow from the start of the grid. Button took the pole. Seldom you get to see this kind of stuff. It was aweful ! Whr are these giant teams? the so called front runners for constructors ? Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW, Renault etc.. ? these 4 teams were reigning the world of F1 for the past few decades. Looks like change has come to F1 too... small teams making it count. But F1 by itself is highly unpredicable... things change overnight ! Nevertheless ....this was an amazing start by Brawn and I hope(Massa hopes !) that they continue doing so to kick the a***s of Ferrari and Mclaren.

Brawn has already set the pace in qualifying. It would be interesting to watch if they can continue the same in tomorrow's race! Looks like they are the strongest contenders this season unless the Ferraris and Mclarens work seriously on their engines and the car aerodynamics for the forthcoming races. Cheers Ross Brawn.....

FZ Vs A Star

2009-03-21T22:44:00.000+05:30

A couple of days back, in Times of India there was a small snippet about the newly launched Maruti Suzuki A-Star. There were few rallies held in cities like Chennai and Bangalore. According to TOI, A Star gave a record mileage of 37+ Kmpl !!!!!!!! can u believe it ? when Ford Fiesta gave an average of 31Kmpl .... my jaws have dropped! and this news has certainly made me think of my decision of buying an FZ 16. My bike is literally drinking feul .... at times it gives just around 30Kmpl :-( Common its just a 153 CC bike with just around 14 BHP... it should give not less than 45 no matter how u ride. Then I keep saying to myself... time and again... this is one heck of a Yamaha product ! & I am one heck of a crazy creature who respects this brand name from the core of my heart.

Now imagine feeding two(dont get me wrong... i am talking about me and my bike) with my miniscule salary !

But the fun of riding a bike is amazing and it will be even more when keep ride at 107Kmph on a national speedway. Yesss.... yesterday i was testing my machine on NH9 Medchal highway and it hit 107 with ease ... for a moment I felt someone was pulling me from behind ... then i slowed down a lil bit as there were heavy vehicles ahead of me. It was fun... my heart was beating at double the normal speed... adrenaline kept pumping ! :-) Next time i will make sure that my tacho shows at least 111 kmph !

Anyone can cook !

2009-03-08T14:41:00.006+05:30

Did this title remind u of something? In case you are still struggling to recollect where u have come aross 'Anyone can cook', it is the jist of the Oscar winning movie 'RATATOUILLE'. I can never forget the characters in this movie. Rats look cute after watching this masterpiece from PIXAR !! Such is the brilliance of this flick. One movie which has truly inspired and motivated me to get my hands on cooking.

Anyways... coming back... this weekend my cousin Harish was at my home and we both thought of cooking Veg Munchurian! We got some Carrots, a Cabbage, a Capsicum(many Cs ... lol), few Onions etc... and of course the ready made Knorr's veg manchurain pack. Then trimmed these veggie stuff and mixed it with maida and made into Veg balls....fried them in oil and then mixed these fried balls with the remains of vegtables and Knorr's pack and boiled it for another 5mins and here we goooooooooooo! our yummy veg manchurian was ready...! never felt so happy about cooking !!! :P

oh yeah... we also tried our hands on Palak Paneer which was also quite tasty. But Veg Manchurian was so aweful that it truly deserves the dish of the weekend award ! Hey... just got another !DEA :-) 'Satyam' is already in troubled waters... how about getting ready for next job? a chef in a fast food centre or something like that? food is one of those sectors which will be last to be hit by recession .... so no slowdown worries... no pink slips... my job will be safe as long as I cook well !! lol

Next week I will try some new stuff... got to explore Reliance Fresh(the one beside my office) tomorrow for more ready made recipes! else I need to take some timeout for Googling with key word 'recipes' :P

Freedom,Independence,Republic & Democracy ....where are these ??

2009-02-15T20:05:00.005+05:30

I have learnt ages ago that India is a truly Republic & Democratic nation & India is a developing country. India being the 2nd fastest growing economy in the world, we are talking about becoming one of the super powers in the world ! Future definitely looks promising.

But there are few gray areas which are definitely pulling us back. Forget major things like corruption & Terrorism. In the era of globalization few senseless acts by brainless creatures are making me think if we have really achieved freedom. I don't know how many of you have given a thought on this earlier. Things like attacking women in Pubs and Discs, Anti V-Day protests, Attacks on Churches are few classic examples from the recent past.

Men going to Pubs in ok with them... then why not women? after all its their life. Many people have already debated on this. But in my opinion any such taboo is a pure senseless act. According to a research report apparently V-Day has created a Rs.600crores market in India alone ! courtesy... Archies & Hallmark ! Even in these recessionary times, this V-Day Archies sales has grown by 4%. You know what it means ? It has indirectly contributed to lot of employment & to the growth of Indian economy. I agree that celebrating these kind of days is purely an individuals choice but it is pure non sense and stupidity if someone else has the trigger. Look at this.... "Couples seen on the streets on Feb 14th will be forcefully made to marry !" what the f***. May be terrorists have a better reason for their senseless acts ! This is heights of making a mockery of LOVE.

What bothers me even more is that the fact all of the above mentioned things have occurred in major Metros ! cosmopolitan cities like Bangalore and a city like Mumbai which never sleeps ! Solution for rediculous acts like these is not so tough to find if you are willing to look for. But who cares these things make headlines only once in an year. India would have already become a much better place to live for if we our acts made some sense... but unfortunately the most uncommon thing in humans is commonsense !

No offenses please... this disgust and hatred is only on the protests which cause huge traffic jams and interrupt the dialy courses of many of our lives.

Luck By Chance

2009-02-07T14:11:00.003+05:30

With Farhan in the lead I couldn't miss this movie ! As Ajay was in India on a vacation, I took him along. He knows I am a crazy fan of FA :-)

The other day I saw an old episode of 'Oye, its Friday' on Youtube of course hosted by Farhan. Guest in that show was his childhood friend Duggu(Hrithik). Hrithik played a small cameo in this movie. He said Luck by Chance will easily be one of the biggest bollywood hits of 2009! amazing... I am a crazy Hrithik fan too. Hence I had huge expectations on this movie but I must say at the end of the day I am a lil disappointed. Luck by chance is yet another average movie. Very much similar to Fashion which also projects the real life scenario. Even in terms of story line this movie is quite predictable and there is no real juice in it. Prior to Rock On release I thought its going to be a trendsetter... even Rock On turned to be yet another average bollywood movie. But Rock On scores high(5/5) for its music. Same is not the case with Luck By Chance.

Every scene is quite predicable but I must appreciate those bits and pieces in the movie which are hilarious. There are few scenes which will have a rib tickling impact on you. The great thing about these scenes is that there are very few dialogues... mostly done with expressions and acts. I thoroughly enjoyed this dialogueless humor. Zafar Khan's(Hrithik) role was even more amazing. You need to watch this to appreciate the humor in it. & of course Rishi Kapoor's role is no less. I must say his role has life in it ! Delete Rishi Kapoor & his role from this movie... and you wont have anything much to watchout for!! apart from the sexy, curvy & drop dead gorgeous Isha Sherwani who also delivered her part quite successfully. Note: She has become my desktop wallpaper :P lol

Its worth giving a watch for those bits and pieces.

On the right track ?

2009-01-31T08:43:00.003+05:30

Part III

Finally there is a sigh of relief among all of us with govt stepping in & taking swift measures to get Satyam back to normalcy and Jan salaries being paid off ! We lost few major clients as reported by media but managed to retain most of them. Now we can find the light at the end of tunnel as many prominent players are showing interest to takeover Satyam. They include L & T, iGate, Hindalco & Spice Group !

Even if some other company buys Satyam layoff will be inevitable. The first thing any new management focuses on will be increasing the Bottom line of their balance sheets (Operating margins) by cutting cost. And in any IT company chunk of the expenses are on its associates. Axe will definitely fall sooner or later but the good news here is that jobs of thousands of other associates will be protected.

I personally believe, initially when this crisis broke out govt acted promptly and taken few very good decisions. But things now are now very sluggish. For the past one month, the headlines of very news channel and paper is Satyam. With elections in the sight of visibility news on Satyam might be sidelined & can be found only in the middle pages! Slowly, steadily but surely they are bringing it back on track. It might take another couple of months to unfold the future of this company and 2 more quarters it should be business as usual ! We might also see a change in the name, another CEO, CFO etc.,

Sector Destruction Ceremony

2009-01-07T21:36:00.003+05:30

Part II

Continuing from where I left in my earlier post....

This post deserves to be called the sequel of 'Self destruction ceremony' which focussed on how it all started and the immediate consequences. But I guess, that was just the beginning. 07.01.2009 is the date when the next part was released, roof broke down & things went upside down. This time it was more like the 'Indian IT sector destruction ceremony'.

'Satyam' has gone truly global this time. Of course for bad reasons. We kept saying that we have clients from 6 Continents and we operate in 66 Nations. I am pretty sure, the rest of the world too must have heard 'Satyam' by now! Generally movies of SRK, Aamir or Hrithik are released with huge hype & the movie becomes a blockbuster hit even before it gets released. This time its the turn of 'Satyam', starring Raju Brothers. The only difference is marketing & publicity for any theatrical movie happens before the release & here in Satyam's case it was the otherway around. Media has come together to project the 'Satyam Fiasco'. on the small screen. Trust me, I have never seen such a mass media coverage till date filled with hype & hoopla. 5 Days & still the coverage in full-fledgedly ON ! May be coz the budget of this movie is a whopping Rs. 7000 Crores !

It was an absolute shocker as things like these are quite unnatural in India. Not so shocking in the west as they have witnessed fiascos of several manfolds like Enron, World Com, Lehman etc., Many say Satyam's situation is very similar to that of Enron which has gone bankrupt in 2001. At that time Enron was the 8th biggest company in the world with over $102 Bn. But lemme tell u... Satyam's case is not as deep as Enron's was(atleast for now). Yes... Raju confessed that he inflated topline and bottom line numbers along with liquid assets. But that is not the end of all... we are in troubled waters, we are in quick sand but remember one thing we still have sizable revenues which are not fake. The issue was purely created by the top management & things hopefully be alright once some kind of takeover or strategic tie-up happens. Ofcourse, there are several other factors to be considered. Gaining new projects and more revenues seem to be quite an uphill task atleast for now. They might need to sack a portion of non-revenue generating workforce, focus more on cost cutting, bring something completely out of box etc.,

To be very frank its very exicting to be associated with this company, now more than ever. As my cousin rightly said, its a life time experience which many few people get. Every crisis has an opportunity if u are bold enough to look for it. I am lucky in one way that I am with Satyam(though at this point in time I cant proudly say) just because it makes all of us stronger. So much has happened in so less time. I am not really sure if a day will come when I can be proud of being a part of a dramatic turnaround(if any), as many things are not in my control. Satyam as a brand has gone for a toss... absolutely no doubt in it. But a Merger with some other well managed company might help clear the scars that were left by Raju's stupidity.

Next couple of weeks are going to be very crucial for us. A lot depends of the investigation, Q3 Results, cash reserves that company hold, Board Meetings, M or A. and ofcosurse Government. What I can do meanwhile is just wait and watch and may be.... be a lil proactive & start making a lil bit of preparation for my next job !

Self Destruction Ceremony

2008-12-17T22:10:00.003+05:30

18:00 IST, 16-12-2008, Tuesday. We all received a mail which contained the breaking news 'SATYAM aquires MAYTAS' !! What rubbish... and IT company acquiring an Infra company? I dont find any common thing between both verticals expect the initial 'I'. The first thing that striked me is divestment(not diversification). I heard a lot about divesting business. One such classic example is Indiabulls which divested its businesses into Real estate, Finance & Securities an year back. But mearging of companies of two difference genres is something which I didnot hear till date.

Raju says... "its an unconventional move !". Analysts say it is a "foolish move." Shareholders say it is a "fraud move"! Whatever it is, this move has already effected the reputation of the firm.
The deal was called off overnight as there is a strong dissent among the shareholders. Satyam, stock was down 55% in NYSE & 30% in Indian bourses. Maytas stock was down 20% on each day for the past 3 consecutive trading sessions. Many deals in the pipeline will be effected and thereafter the impact of this act might cost its employees too. I will not be surprised if there is a change in top management in the next quarter or two. There are a series of similar things which have against Satyam in the recent past. First UPAID case. Then the WORLD BANK case & now the MAYTAS deal. This is no less than a self destruction ceremony. Dont know where we are headed & whats next in store but one more such immatured act might cost us dearly.

With major US financial & auto comapanies queuing up to file for bankrupcy and there after seeking bailouts, the future of all IT companies is looking bleak. This quarter can easily be the last one where the IT comapanies can show reasonable profits & growth rate. Its going to be too tough to sustain this growth from next quarter. If rupee starts appreciating once again, it will add to IT woes.

Fruits, Vegetables & Stocks !

2008-12-02T08:46:00.002+05:30

The other day, on my way to home I saw a vegetables & fruits shop. To be frank I personally never go to buy any food items for my home. My mom takes care of all that... but for a change, I thought of buying a Pineapple. I don't even remember when was last time I bought some fruits/Veggies. I am clueless about the prices & measuring units!! I have learnt from the shopkeeper about the prices of various fruits in there. Interestingly SAPOTA(chikoo) last time when I bought(may be half a decade back) was given in dozens, now they are selling it in KGs! He said the cost of one Pipeapple is Rs. 20. One Apple - Rs. 15. Dozen Bananas - Rs. 20

I reached home without buying anything as I was a little skeptical about the prices. Better my mom handle this !

Now, when I look at my STOCKS PORTFOLIO, I saw half of my stocks are trading lower than Apples & Pineapples !!! It was surprisingly shocking to know that stocks have become cheaper than Vegetables,Fruits ! When I thought about this strange thing, I realised it is because of the infamous economic jargons - 1. Sub Prime Crisis & 2. Rising Inflation. Of course who doesnot know what effect these two had on us. If the former had taken a toll on the Multi National giants & Big Boys then the latter had a deep impact on the common man. In my view, the word of the year award should be given to 'Subprime'.

Approximate numbers: Sensex lost about 65% from its alltime high & Inflation has touched an all time high of 13% but my anual salary hike was just about 6% :-(

Thanks to the booming Indian economy :P

Mumbai... a city that never sleeps

2008-11-28T08:54:00.003+05:30

One night... 9 serials blasts... close to 200 dead & over 300 severely injured... hundreds of hostages... NSG, Police, Army, Navy are on ground zero... LIVE coverage in almost every TV channel..... 60hrs ON. The city was gripped in terror... but the life continues. What was called one of the biggest, strongest, well planned and most effective attacks in the Indian democratic history. The plan was executed to perfection. Interestingly... there are no demands from terrorists - no ransom, no demands to free the so called Jihadi's, absolutely none. The mission was to claim as many lives as possible.

Bombay is well known as the financial capital of India & for obvious reasons it 'was, is & will be' always the primary target for terrorists. After 1993 blasts, the Mumbaikars have lived in peace for few years. But the serenity & calm were taken over by a storm called 'blasts' over the past 2-3 years, courtesy terrorism. This city has taken quite a few blows in the recent past. I truly bow to all of them living in Mumbai from the bottom of my heart for their spirit. No matter how severe the magnitude & intensity of the attacks are..... the city comes to normal the very next day as if nothing has happened ! Call it thats the way of living or say they have got used to these kind of attacks. But one thing is for sure..... they are brave, certainly. The rest of the nation came to a standstill but Mumbai kept moving. A mumbaikar is no less than a soldier, he goes to war everyday. None of the blasts can take away the spirit of Mumbai & Mumbaikars.

The stock price of Indian Hotels has tumbled by over 15% in friday's trade ! Sectors like Tourism, Aviation & Hospitality are the most susceptible to these kind of crises. No wonder why. Chance to white wash England in the ongoing ODI series has gone down. Test series too is under threat. T20 Champion's League is postponed. F**K terrorism.

Time and again terror strikes... & each time it strikes it takes away few hundreds of innocent lives..........BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. But the government is still sleeping. If there is one field that needs immediate attention, then it has to be terrorism(not global warming, not industrialization, not a nuclear treaty, not power, not education, not money... it has to be the fight against terrorism). No active measures were taken. Political parties keep cribbing on silly things like....(u know what are they) but no one is bothered about terrorism. Voices are heard on TV sets for a maximum of 2 days after these attacks happen & ppl tend to forget these as something new pops up! Then they remember to bring some stringent rules & strengthen the judiciary. Take my word..... the same thing is going to repeat as the next term central elections are within the sight. People will be mostly seen fighting in the media throwing verbal attacks at one another. I am sure these meets, talks & bonds with neighboring countries are not going to work out. 'The' most important thing to be done as the first step to protect our citizens from these silly & cowardly acts is to 'work on improving the infrastructure & intelligence sources'. 'Actions speak louder than words'..... please wake up....... we don't want INDIA to be still a developing country.

I am sure, this real story will be very soon projected on the silver screen(the only +ve thing about these blasts). There are already few movies on this genre this season(Mumbai meri jaan, Aamir, A wednesday .... to name a few) & most of them were blockbuster hits. Get ready for another dose probably next season.

Mission Accomplished !

2008-11-21T19:07:00.005+05:30

MUSTANGS Vs BENCH DEVILS

Yuppieeeeeeeeeee! We got through the first round quite easily. 2-1 was the final scorecard :-) But the sad part is that I didnot play the match! We were practicing 30mins before the match begun & I had few minor cramps which aggravated as I continued to play :-( So I was forced to wait outside and cheer for Mustangs.

To summarize, a goal in the first half by Kishore & a goal in the second half by Kiran. There were many attacks on the goal post of the opposition but managed to kick in only 2 in the end as the goal post is just about a hockey goal post(Nothing to the 'Bench Devils' credit). WE (Mustangs) felt a lil nervous in the final 5 mins as the bench devils managed one past our Sleeping goalie(who is more interested in his GF standing outside the line than the football which is just around the corner!). But our strong defender Prashant was good enough to kick the ball into the Devils' zone. Ahh... a funny thing which happened in the match - our goalie grabbed the football with both hands & just crossed the goal post line(luckily no one noticed it except Mustangs) & was thinking about the next move as if he is playing chess......... guess what.... after holding the ball in his hand for about 10 secs(which is against the rules) he kicked it outside!! A real buffoon :P

Now we are through to the 'Group Stage', where each group contain 4 teams and each team needs to play 3 matches. The top 2 will qualify for the next round. We need to wait at least till Feb for our next match as the matches are scheduled only 2 days in a week :-(

Movies & Soccer

2008-11-11T08:51:00.006+05:30

Wassupppppppppppppppppp? this is the common phrase I keep hearing at least a dozen times each day. Alright, this is what I am up to these days.

I have got my hard drive full of movies from Trishul. 60+ flicks, mostly Hollywood - includes almost every genre.... Action, Animation, Horror, Romance, Comedy, Drama, Thriller ......

I already have many addictions and to add to those this is a new one. Not that earlier I never used to watch movies. But earlier there was a limit..... at most 2 on a holiday and I used to get exhausted. Now I have breached all the benchmarks of watching movies & there is absolutely no resistance or saturation points visible. Believe me I have watched 9 movies on last weekend ! In the past ten days I have covered not less than 20 movies. Which includes few fabulous flicks like 'Back to the future' series too, Animated stuff 'Cars', Action flick 'Death Race', Horror movie 'The Grudge', Thriller 'Before the devil knows u r dead' to name a few. This has become a daily routine.... morning one movie before going to office and evening one movie after coming from office, as if my physician has advised for a dose of medicine before Breakfast & before Dinner! Out of all animation stuff stands apart.... 'Cars','Ratatouille','Bee Movie' are simply awesome. I heard a lot about Pixar and I must say these guys are superb. I was taken aback with these concepts... Rat becoming a chef, Robots falling in Love, A world of cars & only racing cars, Elephant hearing the microscopic community! I think I have gone crazy for animation stuff. Now I cant think of missing anything... gonna tune in to Cartoon Network from tomorrow ! Any crazy freaks out there like me?? If yes, U can share few more movies with me.

One good thing my company is doing currently apart from CSR activities is promoting football across the nation! YES... after bagging the FIFA deal for the next 2 soccer world cups, they have created a sports vertical and betting big on it. As the first step, they began the promotion activities in the company it self. We have a soccer match this friday evening and we are all gearing up for this. We thought of stretching our muscles a lil bit to avoid disappointment and surprises on the match day. So we had a practice session on last saturday for which only 5 guys have turned up out of 8 !! Never mind... we played for 15mins hardly and realized that is the high point of our stamina and we were down & out in the next minute. Our match will be for 40 mins split into two 20min halves with a 10mins break between both. Now with this kind of fitness I guess the only way of winning the match is, if the opposition team can stay on field for not more than 15 mins :-(

I am planning to watch 'Goal' to get some motivation before the match begins(lol)..... watching EPL or Champion's League is not a bad idea to know how to sledge if not tips & tricks! How about Zizu's head butt :P

A rocking week

2008-11-04T08:43:00.006+05:30

Last week was full of drama,glamor,glitter,action,class,thrills,suspense & adrenaline rush ! The 3rd test match between Ind & Aus was just too good if you are a Hyderabadi or a Delhite. Initially there were 2 double tons for the very first time in the history of Indian cricket - one from Gambhir's bat & the other from Laxman's blade. Laxman's knock was as usual a classy one, full of drives all around the ground. It happened time and again. Just when the knife is on the throat of VVS, he delivers a wonderful knock & silences all the critics!! This time it was no different. There were many debates on India's fab 4 before the beginning of this Border-Gavaskar series.

On day 5, after TEA of the 3rd Test there came a news which almost shook the complete cricket crazy nation - "Anil Kumble announces retirement !!!". I feel Anil has done a right thing by retiring - not because he is 38, but bcoz he has lost that spark in his bowling ever since he has taken over the captaincy. It was shocking as no one was expecting it to come so early. Nevertheless, I am sure his 19 years service to the INDIAN cricket will be remembered forever and he will remain as a source of inspiration to many upcoming young bowlers. The best part of his career is that he was never ever involved in any kind of controversies ! Its a known fact that, when it comes to cricket, Sachin is still treated as God in India. He has overshadowed almost every other player. We miss Sachin if he is not there in the squad. Lets see if we are going to miss Anil from tomorrow :( Next test match is supposedly Sourav dada's last test match. So another farewell speech is in the offing :( But I sincerely feel he should not retire so early, at least from tests. Test matches is all about having a good temperament & patience. and I think dada still has it in him. Sourav is known more for his captaincy than his skills & will be remembered forever as one of the strategist, as a thinking captain. Dhoni is going to takeover his legacy(not from Kumble or Dravid.... from Sourav!).

Out came the newest sensation, the wonder kid, the prodigy - Saina Nehwal ! This 16 year old girl has already created a storm in the world of Badminton. After reaching Semis in the Beijing Olympics she has won two back to back championships & now she has also won the world junior badminton championship. She is definitely going great guns.... jaise guru(Gopichand) waise sishya! Kudos young lady.... keep the spirit alive.... you still have a long way to go! Another Hyderabadi pro in the making. Hyderabad has stampeded its position in two major sports - BADMINTON & CHESS. Badminton is one of those sports which I play & love it to the core..... so the joy of being a Hyderabadi is even more ! I have absolutely no doubt about her creeping into the top 5 in the next few days. Its just a matter of time ..... she is already @ 12 !!

Then came the RACE DAY ! Huhuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !

BRAZIL calling......! This race is considered as the best race in the history of Motor Racing by many people. I feel proud to have watched it LIVE completely (@ midnight 12 IST) even without missing a single lap!! Believe me guys.... it was AWESOME.

Hamilton arrives with a comfortable 7 point lead over Massa. Everyone believed this time only a miracle can steal away the driver's championship from Hamilton. F1 2007 season's last race was also @ Brazil & it has decided the fate of championship. This time around it was a repeat of 2007. But there was slight difference.... last time Kimster(of Ferrari) has snatched victory from Hamilton(of McLaren) & this time it was the other way around.... Hamilton(of McLaren) has pulled the championship from the jaws of Massa(of Ferrari). Massa was at pole and Hamilton was at 5th & Hamiltion needed to finish just 5th to win the title(no matter where Massa finishes) & it was a must win for Massa. There were at least a dozen twists in this race. The end result has become highly unpredictable with each lap! It started with a slight drizzle, so all the team came out with intermediate tyres then changed to dry tyres after few laps as the weather became normal. Few pit stop errors & bad driving from Trulli costed him 5-6 places & Alonso once again showed his class to reach 2nd spot ahead of Kimi!!! After a lot of interesting laps the real drama happened. Hamilton was comfortable at 4th position. 5more laps to go..... in comes rain ! All Cars into pits to change the tyres except one ! That one was Timo Glock(of Toyota) & he decided the fate of this year's championship. 1 more lap to go..... Massa inching closer to the chequered flag.... Hamilton slowly cruising away at 4th position to win the championship. Rober Kubica(of BMW) was a lap down and was just behind Hamilton but still tried to overtake him ! Right behind Hamilton is Sebastian Vettel(of Torro Rosso). Hamilton lost his nerves and went to the insider corner... Vettel took the opportunity to overtake him!! and has done that with ease. The whole scene changed in less than 5 seconds. Suddenly Hamilton is down to 6th from 4th ! 4th is still Glock who decided to stay on track with dry tyres. Meanwhile the top 3(Massa, Alonso & Kimi) have finished the race(almost 30secs ahead of Hamilton & Vettel). Then came the last turn of the the last lap of the race...... this was truely nerve wrecking! F1 @ its very best. Timo Glock has slowed down just before the chequered flag and let Hamilton finish 5th :( All the celebration is Ferrai camp were shattered in seconds. I still doubt if Glock has done it purposefully. Massa wins the race but Hamilton celebrates !

In all..... it was a fabulous week. Hey guys... Renault is planning for a F1 road show in Delhi this Sunday. They are expecting to draw a crowd of approximately 3 lakhs!!! Now thats HUGE....This is going to be a mind blowing one. Now I wish I am a Delhite ! :-)

The tiny Squirrel in my tiny Garden

2008-10-25T11:46:00.003+05:30

Hey Guys... these pics are of a tiny squirrel, found in my garden last week. You might say...whats so interesting about this ?! Normally Squirrels are found on and around trees & they generally run away from humans. But interestingly this squirrel wants to live among humans ! We drop it in the garden and it immediately runs into the house along with us. It crawls on to the human body all over.... causing some awkward feeling. I don't know when I am going to get a Lab but I have got a Rodent without asking !!

Thought of taking few snaps and post it in my blog. Here they are...

On the Guava tree...

Smile Please....

Posing for a perfect SNAP... ! Picture Perfect :)

She is finally on my Computer Table too..... :)

Mr. Mouse or Mr. Rodent... who is heavier !

This is a video of the Naughty Squirrel... it would have, for sure won a GOLD for India in long jump !! Just watch it.... its amazing.

Sadly.... after 3 days, this squirrel looked very weak. It was not as active as it used to be.... It became difficult for it even to move. Reasons unknown..... Y'day morning it was found dead in my veranda :-( :-( :-( A TRAGIC END :'(

Few Updates from my L!F3

2008-10-04T20:50:00.004+05:30

Its been quite some time that I spoke about the happenings @ my end. Thought of penning down today. Hmmm.... where should I start? L!F3 is currently a lil messy.

WORK:

Alright... I'll start where I have last ended --- Graduation,Satyam,Planning etc.,! when all seemed to be going good with my career. I have joined the Resource Planning team & started learning new things. Thought this is a wonderful step as I was involved in some of the very interesting & key processes at the corporate level. There was a sense of achievement initially as the enthu levels were very high. Everything went well till the end of last financial year. Later on life started moving in a slow motion ! may be because of the fact that I get bored easily when I start doing the same things repeatedly. Yes.... Time & Again i was doing the same stuff at my work place. A process driven by corporate but a lot to do with individual businesses in the organization. I lost interest in my work as the learning has reached a point of saturation. Meanwhile there were few unexpected changes in my team. There were 2 new team mates. I have asked my boss to release me.... which makes some sense too !! But my boss diplomatically denied my proposal ! :( Better luck next time !
Huh.... I am sick & tired doing this boring sh*t each day. Cant help....need to DO. Don't know for how long.....:(

Friends:

The less I say the better it is ! Just think that all my friends have queued up to leave me alone !! One after other.... Brahmam, Madhu, Pavan, Girish, Avinash, Arvind, Vaibhav, Ajay, Vinay, Abhineet & now Aishik.... huh.. the list is directly proportional to my increasing age(may be in DAYS) :-( And towards the other end there are few friends(so called) are still living in this city but hardly meet ;) May be they have become a lil busy with their lives(personal:P). Understandably my password to pastime is 'MOVIES'. Of course, the downloaded ones. Thanks to Riaz :) Courtesy Internet :D Amid these extreme changes I found few really interesting people at work. One of them is Anurag Bhattacharjee(AB)-The walking encyclopedia. he he he... U need not Google if Jr. AB is with you. Believe me this kiddo has got a memory of at least 250Tera Bytes!! Aishik looks completely settled in his new marketing role & currently his Dine & Wine happens only with CXOs!!!!!!!!! Then there are two nightingales - Gunjan & Deepika !! One interested in social service and the other dedicated to work ! One operates on the principle of "Service to Mankind is Service to God!" & the other operates on "Work is Worship" & sometimes 'War'ship too!!(lol). Next up is Robert Kotus from Poland. He is my 15 days old friend(call him colleague!!) We are currently on a Mission... Mission is to teach Robert Hindi, taste him the south Indian spicy food, teach him how to ride a bike in Hyderabad traffic & many more such weird things. In one word... this mission is to make Robert a Hyderabadi by the time leaves India :) he he he.

Badminton:

August 1st week.... I was completely living in solitude. The last close mate Vinay has left to US chasing his dreams and aspirations. No company to jog. Then it striked me to start playing Badminton(which was once in my Blood!!!) once again. There is an indoor shuttle badminton court around 5kms away from my home. Without wasting any time I have quickly started playing in the mornings. As I am playing Badminton after a long gap, it took me almost a month to gain the lost form!!

Family:

We are Three till now & we are going to be soon six!! Read on....
Grandmom is in my home currently :) Gokul(my brother) who is working in Bangkok for the past 20months has resigned and coming back forever!! If there is anyone whom I missed the most in my life till now then it is him. coz... I missed him almost throughout my life as he always used to stay away from home-right from childhood to teenage for studies & now for work :( I think he is calling it quits now. He is returning by tomorrow's flight. Yuppieeeee!! Then the last addition in my family will be a new pet. Probably a Labrador. Its gonna be a rocking family...A perfect one!!

Thats it for now.........I will post the pics of my complete family very soon*

* - depends on the new entrant --- Mr. Lab

Where are we heading ?

2008-09-16T21:56:00.014+05:30

No matter where u r in this world u might have heard about the recent catastrophe in USA. A catastrophe which rocked & shook the complete world. No... I am not talking about Hurricane Ike or Hurricane Gustav. This article is on the downfall of 5 giants.

It all started with the Jan 22nd crash. The sub-prime crisis, US economy slowdown, Increasing Joblessness claims etc., by March many global banks have written down billions of dollars. Citi Bank writing off 50+ billion USD topping the list!! followed by companies like UBS. The total estimated losses of all the companies accounted to a whopping 512 Billion USD!!( write offs were approx... 275Billion USD in America, 215Billion USD in Europe & 25 Billion USD in Asia). Citi Bank need to sell some of its assets to come out of this quick sand! Few giant companies survived & few are still struggling & swimming against the tide & few have gone almost bankrupt!! Lets now talk about few of the biggest Organisations( based out of USA) which were washed away in the tide called Sub Prime Crisis.

First up....

Bear Stearns - one of the oldest Investment banks in USA was severely hampered & its stock price came down to 2$/share down from 133$/share. Finally it was acquired by JP Morgan. JP Morgan has paid close to 10$/share.

Next up...

Now its the turn of the US' oldest mortgage firms Fannie & Freddie ! The Fed came to the rescue this time.

The real Carnage begun in mid SEP.

With in a gap of less than a week, first Lehman Brothers made the headlines filling its bankruptcy. Then came the news on AIG, the biggest insurance company in the world !! Merrill Lynch followed in their footsteps. The stock price of Lehman bottomed out! It was almost valueless at 0.12$ last time when i checked. A company which has a successful history of 158 years surviving many financial crashes & world wars has finally bitten the dust :-( Interestingly Lehman has never even reported a quarterly loss till June 08!! More or less same is the case with AIG. Merrill Lynch is slightly in a better position. Luckily Merrill Lynch was taken over by BoA(Bank of America) there by becoming the biggest brokarage house in the world !! Federal Bank again came into the picture. It helped AIG by providing $80B loan after picking up 80+ % stake in the company proving that AIG is too big to fail !!! Parts of Lehman Brothers were acquired by biggies like Barclays. But that was not sufficient. Need to wait and see the future of Lehman :( It definitely looks gloomy.

The story so far :

Till date Investment Banking is the buzz word in any country when it comes to Finance ! Most of the American giants used to recruit grads from our IIMs ! I Banking used to be the most preferred profession for any MBA with splzation in Finance. But with the recent turn around in things it may soon change. There is already an article in TOI which says IIM grads are now shifting focus from IB to Micro Finance. I am totally unaware of what this Micro Finance means :-( But I am sure there is something cooking in every B-School :-) we can smell it :D

Bear Stearns, Merill Lynch, Lehman Brothers...... 3 out of top 5 Investment Banking firms are clean bowled. Left are........the dream company of many young Finance Aspirants (like me) Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley. Goldman has announced a 70% decline in profits when compared to last quarter!! which it self is an indication of slowdown. Both Goldman & Morgan used to be individual IB firms which out any tieup till now. But looks like they are reconsidering their independent status. Donno what exactly is cooking inside these firms... but the odour is definitely bad :P

If you think that the list has ended here then u might need to think again ! wait for another quarter or two.... there might be still some bad news left :(

Side Effects:

After all this mayhem analysts have termed this as Financial Tsunami !! & rightly so.

Guru Buffett termed this turmoil in the markets an 'economic Pearl Harbor' ! His quote: "It's not like Pearl Harbor where you could look at what happened with your own eyes and decide you had to do something that day. This is sort of an economic Pearl Harbor we're going through.'' Which only means that this Financial Tsunami has not reached its Climax !

Amid all this chaos, the Bush administration is trying for a $700Billion 'bailout plan' to bring some steadiness in the markets. But things did not turn in their favor till now. Voting went against the bail out plan and the DOW JONES plummeted 777 points on 29th Sep !! The biggest ever single day fall in the history of US. The jitters and tremors are felt across the globe & India is no exception. Now thats really Bad.... in fact its worse.

The aftermaths of these crashes, downfalls are Pink Slips in almost all the sectors which are dependent on US. IT is ahead in the list ! More than 65% of revenues of major Indian IT companies come from USA. which means these companies will get less business in future. Moreover, a significant part of these revenues come from BFSI(Banking,Financial Services & Insurance) sector(anywhere between 20%-45% of total revenues). Now its self explanatory!

He he he .......every second is filled with excitement these days. Its feels just like watching an F1 race! U never know who is going to crash OUT. My company has already started the cost cutting business by sacking jobs!! Is ur company into this business ?? If NO then they might soon learn this ART. BE CAREFUL !!

Break the Jinx

2008-09-11T19:09:00.012+05:30

Kimster & Ferrari have started this season with a bang. There was no stopping till the 5th or 6th race. When everything seemed to be just about perfect, Kimi is followed by a series of nightmares! Forget about winning the race(or at least finishing on podium), he is unable to even finish the race !! Sometimes he is haunted by engine failures & sometimes by crashes on wet tracks.

I didnot watch last week's Belgian GP as I was out with few of my colleagues. Had I watched the race I would have either broke into tears or would have broken my TV set !! Hamilton started at Pole & Iceman at 4th. Still Iceman managed to grab the # 1 spot minutes into the race! Unbelievable...isnt it :-) Then he led till the penultimate lap. Penultimate lap- this is when the real drama took place. First the showers made the track wet then the Hamilton-Kimi duo fight for #1 positon. Kimi managed to throw Lewis into the woods! but strangely Lewis took the back door(hamilton has cut chicanes) and was out on track ahead of kimster!! Heart break for Ferrari & Iceman fans!!! immediately for some reason(may be kimi lost his cool as lewis overtook him or bcoz of Kazuki Nakajima coming in the way or may be bcoz of his left tyre becoming flat!) he crashed out!!! RACE ENDS, at least for kimi Raikkonen fans.

Post race comments by Kimi:
"I was prepared to win or lose, but unfortunately I went off. I only wanted to win. I slid wide on the fast left hander, and tried to come back on the circuit but I went off. I didn't want to finish behind we would have lost points. We see what we can do."

Raikkonen said: "You get punches and blows, but you just carry on and fight back. There is no reason for me to start worrying over what has happened to now stop trying. I will fight until the very end."

Now thats more like a fighter.... I luv to hear this from u Kimi.

Have a glance @ Kimi's F1 career so far.

1 Wrld C'ship
17 wins
16 poles
33 fastest laps
54 podiums
513 points

Next destination is Monza,Italy. Monza is one of the fastest circuits in F1, with average speed of 250+ Kmph add to that + Ferrari is from Italy. There is a lot to look out for in this race...Glamor,Speed,Over takings,adrenaline rush & finally champagne. If not Kimi, Massa will fight out with Lewis for the championship. This will FOR SURE keep your adrenaline pumping! Game has already begun. In today's(Friday) practice Kimi has topped the table. He has regained his lost form and showed his true colours!! RED Rules.... Kimi will rule(OMG...I am sounding too optimistic). Its going to be a Mission Impossible for Kimi to win this championship as we are left only with 5 races. Mind you Kimi is currently at 4th in the drivers standings with 19points short of steward Hamilton.

Oh...forgot to mention....just when i am writing this post the news of contract extension of ICEMAN with FERRARI till 2010 is out !! I am luving this sport even more now.

This weekend I am going no where....I don't give a damn even if the big bang happens & world comes to an end!! I will stick to my TV with Star Sports ON from 16.30 PM IST !!

GAME ON....ROCK ON!!

Google turns 10

2008-09-10T19:10:00.006+05:30

Happy B'day Google.

Google celebrated its 10th anniversary on 7th Sep. I know I am a little late in wishing but nevertheless its not too late :-) I am sure you all will agree that Google has become a part of our daily lives. We all search for something on internet at least once in a day. Not sure about remembering my best of best friends daily but I am doubly sure that I remember Google each day!! That is the impact this $20b monster has on my life at least. It has become a synonym for 'Help'. Google is God(for ppl who believe in God). Google is Luck(for ppl who believe in Luck). Google is a genie(for ppl who believe in magic). Google is Life(for all netizens). Google is pure innovation, an evolution, a revolution. A tool which has changed the face of this internet industry by all means through its innovative products. Recently it has added one more jewel to its crown in the form of 'CHROME'-A WEB BROWSER. I am currently writing this blog with the help of Chrome. Its looks really cool !

I have read an article in NYTIMES.COM. This article has got few interesting statistics. I advice you to go through this link if you are a fan of Google just like zillions of people around this world are. CLICK HERE to know interesting facts about 'G'.

We have reached a stage where we cant imagine LIFE without Google!! WOW... "LIFE WITHOUT GOOGLE"! sounds good...will plan to write a book on this :P

I admire Google.... do u??

SAI.... The Face Reader !!

2008-09-09T20:10:00.000+05:30

Few days back.....

I was waiting in the parking lot outside a building in Secunderabad. I was just killing time watching the people around as I was a lil early than I should have. Then came a guy aged around 18 years, with a bag on his shoulder, lean, dark & tall. He introduced himself as Sai.

My first impression on him: must be someone from a remote area who lost all his money. Now he needs to go back & there is no other source than to ask help from someone! Believe me these kind of cases are increasing exponentially !! When I used to take public transport, I used to come across at least one such case each week. Though this case is a lil different, the jist is the same! Read on !!

Sai: I am from Srikakulam. I am studying Intermediate. I came here on a weekend to meet one of my old lecturers.

Me: so ?

Sai: My sir has asked me to come after an hour or so.

Me: so ?

Sai: I am a Face Reader !! Face Reading & fortune telling is my family occupation. I found your face very interesting !! If you don't mind can I tell something about u?

Me(within myself): Lets kill some time. Though I dont believe in anything of this sort, this is going to be fun. Lets get into the details.

Me: Oh is it !! Please go ahead. But I am not going to take out even a single penny from my pocket!!

Sai: Thats okay. I am not doing this for money.... I just saw you and wanted to speak to you !!

Me(within myself): Amazing!! not for money... huhuhhhhhhhhh :-)

Sai: Your lucky number is 5. Even if you take a new mobile number or a new vehicle see that you get '5' in it. You dream a lot about your future. you want to make something big in life. Unfortunately since your birth you have a problem with studies. You have never excelled in studies till now!! You are going to meet a girl before 26th of next month!!

Me(smiling): ohh is it!! Interesting. Go ahead...

Sai: This girl will become a part of your life !

Me: pppppuuuurrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhh !

Sai: You struggle a lot to reach your goals and dreams. Ultimately you fail ! Some bad things are happening to you these days and they keep happening untill you do some kind of pooja to god.

Me(within myself): hahaaaa... there u r ! I was expecting that u'll take me here.

Sai: If u r interested then I will explain u the process. Which god do you believe in?

Me: I am an athiest. I dont believe in the existence of god.

Sai: No sir... everyone prays for some god or the other. At least you will have a poster of god in your room. which one do you have...?

Me: Lets assume i believe in God XYZ... what next ??

Sai: I will do a pooja on your name.

Me: okay please go ahead and do...!!

Sai: It needs 7KGs of sugar!! you give me some money so that I can buy it for you and finish the puja.

Me: he he he he he ....good joke. Thanks for passing time with me.

Sai: why sir? what happened? you dont believe me? you can trust me sir. this is my family business and i pray to 101 different gods daily. I dont even eat food till I finish my puja daily!!

Me: Good. Infact very very good. keep doing. You forgot to say onemore quality of mine. " I am a big spendthrift(kanjoos). I dont give a penny if there is nothing in it for me" !!

Me: It was fun. Thanks for entertaining me and telling so many things which I dont know !! Have a good day & all the best for ur 10+2 :-)

There ends the story :-)

THE END

Live Your Dream :-)

2008-08-30T21:50:00.005+05:30

There are two reasons for writing this post.

I was closely tracking 'ROCK ON' ever since it was first out in media! close to 6months back. So its not fair to let it go without writing a review.
More than entertainment this movie gives its audience a message. A genuine lesson on life.

With a versatile and talented artist Farhan Akthar in the crew & the genius trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy music, this film promises to be quite different for the usual Bollywood movies. For obvious reasons I wanted to watch this movie even if it is a flop. Get set & go... First day second show !! ROCK ON.

FA's earlier 3movies are all of different genres. DCH was all about friendship. Lakshya was about achieving a goal. Don, a remake of yesteryear's 'Don', was all about illegal trade & drugs.
Let me remind you ROCK ON is not directed by FA. After watching the movie I felt it is a blend of his earlier two movies!!(DCH & Lakshya). Rock On is not just about friendship but also about living a dream!! The music of this movie is not liked by everyone. It has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I am listening to 'Rock On' since the Day 1 of its music launch!! I have liked it to that extent.Movie Starts with 'Socha Hai' a rocking number! A minute late into the cinema you are undoubtedly going to miss the best part. The idea of clubbing the past with the present didn't really looked like worked(you need to watch the movie for better understanding of this statement). Four friends, each of them were gifted with some magic create a Rock band and they call it 'MAGIK' & rightly so. Aditya(FA) is the lead singer, Joe(Arjun Rampal) the lead guitarist, Rob(Luke Kenny) the keyboard player & RD(Purab Kohli) the kick ass drummer.

Every move in the movie is quite predictable. There will be a reminisce of Jhankar Beats too !! Rock On moves at a snails pace, primarily it lacks humor. Except the Rocking music, there is nothing in the movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I cant say it is yet another typical bollywood movie for the simple reason that you walk away from the cinema with a feeling of achievement!!(i will talk about this in the latter half). The taking and cinematography is quite natural and outstanding. The looks & hairstyles of all the actors are quite different & they perfectly resemble Rock Stars. FA has delivered his best & never looked like this is his debut movie as an actor. So are the other three. Rock On entertain you whenever there is a song!! You will be literally dancing on your seat. Rest of the times..... I think its understandable.

Just when 'Magik' becomes a huge success, the members of the band split and take different routes for a silly reason. Adithya becomes an Investment Banker!! RD handles his father's jewellery business, Rob is working with Anu Mallik & Joe does almost nothing!! After 10years they realize what they have missed in the life & reunite. They start off where have left 10years back & create the same 'MAGIK'. Here is where you get a feel of achievement ! Living your dream. Its quite natural to imagine urself in the shoes of the protagonist of the movie. But this time there is something more to it... Living a Dream.

All of us in our teenage or early twenties dream of achieving something in life but most of us end up doing something else than what we have dreamt of!! I am sure you all will agree with me. It happened to me as well.... & it happened to many of them i know. The earlier hit of the year 'Tare Zameen Par' also tries to iterate the same thing & Aamir was damn successful in conveying the message. He left a footprint not just in the hearts but also the minds of the audience. We just compromise and leave our passions aside & move on with a mechanical life. You are going to be remembered only when your passion for something turns into your profession. ROCK ON does more or less the same.

Rock On is more about Living your dream. You will not worry much about anything if you start living your dream. In the process, others will just follow. Lets start living 'in' our dreams... go to bed !!

ROCK ON --- LIVE YOUR DREAM

Bill Gates clicks on "LOG OFF"

2008-06-26T23:58:00.008+05:30

Its been quite some time now that Bill Gates thought of bidding farewell to Microsoft. He's been in charge of Microsoft for over 3 decades now. He is one of the best business men the mighty US has produced. Now he called it quits! He has topped the Forbes list consecutively for over 13yrs. We all know him as the world's richest man. But very few people know about the other side of this legend. He along with his wife Melinda Gates has started a charity organization named Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. Mr. & Mrs. Gates will be working full time for this good cause from now on.

Almost every one is aware of the cold war between Steve Jobs & Bill Gates. I have been always a huge fan of Steve Jobs. "Bill Gates always wanted to be an innovator but remained to be a Business man, Steve Jobs always wanted to be a Business Man but remained to be an Innovator!!" Mind you...by saying this I am not degrading Bill Gates! He is the one of the best and will remain to be....

Warren Buffett....another legend, a role model, a classic example, God of stock markets is an unsung hero. Buffett has just taken over the world's richest man tag away from Bill Gates. He is over 76 now and still going strong. Though this news is a lil old, it deserves a mention in every scene! Warren Buffett has donated about 75% of his wealth to Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. Can you believe it !! A person slogs his entire life and makes close to $ 50Billion and gives away three-fourth of his wealth to charity!! Hats off Buffett...

I am sure Bill Gates deserves a much better post than this... But....

Wishing Bill Gates a very good luck for his second innings!

Vroom Vrooom Vroooom

2008-06-14T09:08:00.003+05:30

I was waiting for the past 6months for this day ! I have post-poned the plans of buying a new bike for myself just because of YAMAHA's new 150CC power bike launch. Must have had a look at Yamaha India's official website at least a 100times till now!! through which I got to know the technology used and various specifications of this bike & the day has finally come(12.06.2008).

The all new Yamaha R15(a variant of the legendary R1) has been officially launched in INDIA.

Yamaha's has got only one hit model in INDIA till date. Thats RX Series. This time around I should say its a very bold,smart and well calculated move which Yamaha has made. With the launch of power bikes in INDIA they want to bring in a revolution in motor biking. Its really too ambitious to expect an instant hit. But slowly the things will turn around. Say in the next 5years or so, we will be seeing more and more 150CC+ bikes on the roads. Its the Indian Youth's changing lifestyles and the passion for speed which plays a major role. I feel, Yamaha this time got everything just about right when it comes to the performance of R15. With tubeless tyres on & 6 speed gear box and @ 140 KMPH, undoubtedly this beast is the fastest bike on Indian roads. Pulsars, Karizmas, Apaches & CBZs will stay at bay when they race with R15. But(yeah... these But's' are always there !!) the price seems to be a little too high for a common man. @ over 1 Lakh for a 150CC bike & increasing fuel prices each day, people who are filthy rich only might go for it right now. Yamaha might just reconsider its price after having a look at the sales at the end of this FY.

CLICK HERE to know more about this stunning beauty ! Be careful, It might just take ur breath away.

As of now, I have kept the plans of buying a power bike on Hold. One thing which is common between Mobiles, Bikes & Girls is that you will always get a better model if u can wait longer!!
With 2 world class product launches in a span of less than a week(Apple iPhone 2.0 & Yamaha R15) I am on cloud 9.

iPhone 2.0

2008-06-11T22:56:00.005+05:30

STEVE is back ! U must have seen/read the new iPhone 2.0 launch/review. But still, this gadget is worth mentioning any number of times. Below are the reasons....

1. It has 3G
2. It has GPS
3. It has Bluetooth Headset for Radio
4. It has MS Exchange Active Sync

5. It allows third party apps & Many more..

If you think these are no big deal for you to buy iPhone then you need to think again. coz the killer of all is its price. YES, with just 199$ for a 8GB & 300$ for a 16GB phone APPLE is also into a price war. Of course, U need to sign a post paid 2yr contract with the service provider in ur country. Apart from this I don't find even a single pitfall in this phone. But dont worry, hackers & crackers are always there to do the unlocking part of it !! This phone has got all the features that u need.

I cant wait to get my hands on it!! I have pre-registered for an iPhone for myself. If u r also looking to buy this stunningly beautiful and stylishly sexy master-piece then register right here, right now(for Indian Citizens only).

Airtel users
Vodafone users

Eagerly waiting for its INDIA launch. No wonder the monthly rental will be at least Rs.800/month and I really doubt if it costs 199$ in INDIA !! I am GAME even if I need to shed few extra bucks.

Wake up KIMSTER

2008-06-09T21:45:00.008+05:30

RED was ruling the roost in the F1 2008 season till now. McLaren, BMW were struggling to catch up with the Ferrari's pace. Renault, Red Bull, Honda & Toyota were no where in the picture!! Kimi and Massa were in fantabulous form. Just when almost everyone thought its going to be the Ferrari all the way, both the constructors and the drivers championship are now wide open! After 7 GPs for the first time this season the top 4 drivers standings are separated by just 7Points. Ferrari & BMW are going neck to neck for the constructors. Ferrari is on the top with 73 points leading BMW by just 3points. I am sure McLaren will soon join the party to make things even more interesting.

Kimi & his team(Ferrari) were way ahead of others till the Turkish GP. But in the next two races the whole scene has changed. BMW's promising driver Kubica is leading the drivers championship. I must say this Polish driver is going great guns. With his consistency he is going full throttle and firing all the cylinders. Thanks to the wonderful engine developed by BMW this season. They are matching the pace of Ferrari & McLaren !! One must say lil luck too favored BMW in the Canadian GP. After that Adrian Sutil's gear box failure, safety car has spoiled the strategy of Ferrari. Adding to that, Hamilton has hit Kimster from behind in the pits. Poor Hamilton didnot see the RED light ON(he must have born in HYDERABAD!! Hyderabadi istyle of crossing the junctions). This soon led to chaos in pits(ADVANTAGE BMW).

Eagerly looking forward for the GP in France. Its going to be fun. Its going to be full of adrenaline rush. Its going to be a key race for both the RED Drivers. Its going to be do or die for McLaren(for constructors). If Kimi fails to make a podium finish this time alone, its going to be an uphill task for him to defend his title(which was hard fought and won last season). He is an iconic driver but some serious questions will be raised on his consistency again. But considering the fact that Hamilton is fined 10 grid places penalty for the French GP, the way for KIMI is quite clear(unless McLarens go on a single pitstop strategy!).

ICEMAN set the track on FIRE. GO KIMI .....U ROCK.

Courtesy Images: formula1.com

Lakshya 2....It took him 24years and 2600 Kms to find himself

2008-05-19T21:37:00.013+05:30

Note: Guys who don't understand Telugu should excuse me for first paragraph.

Beginning:

"Sariga chaduvukora babu... backlogs lekunda eppatikapudu clear chesuko ra idiot...60% anna techuko ra fool... B.Tech 4 years lo finish cheyaka pote taravata badha padalsivastundi ra brainless creature...". Ilanti dialogues kanisam oka dozen friends semester ki oka dozen times each cheppi untam!! vinnada? lede.."meeru chadavamante chadavala? naa istam vachinatu chaduvuta...ipudu mood ledu. Night ki meeranta nidra poyaka chaduvuta.... main aisa hi hoon.." ani reply vachedi. Hmmm... veedu manaku vinadu le... forget him ani we used to carry on. Not that we used to burn the midnight oil each day, but still at least on the day before the exam(most of them call it one night battle....battle for that magical 60%).

The dude I am referring to is one of my dearest... probably the closest of all my friends. He is Ajay Kumar Penmatsa. Here is the Pic of that moron.

Post interval......(Now the Story gets a lil serious):

St. Martin's Engg. College... E.E.E .... 2002 First batch(though he has passed out along with 2nd batch !!). He has past almost 2years deciding what he wants to do in life. Finally stuck to networking. Worked in a small 'company' like company in Hyd for few months. Hardly gained any experience as there was hardly anything happening in that company. Understandably they did not pay him even a single penny. Frustrated & Irritated, thought of calling it quits. I was one of the closest to watch him each day(may be next only to his dad). NOW, all he needs is a break.

Then came a call from Abu Dhabi!! (not with work permit). He went on a tourist visa to meet his mom and aunt. 7.5 Weeks now. 04.04.08 is the date he left India. I/We felt a hint of discomfort when he left. But LIFE should go on. Today I received a call from this chap. He has attended an interview and got through. I was more than just happy when I heard him say that he has got the appointment letter with a decent pay package to survive there.

Climax....A good beginning !

I am sure even he must be on Cloud 9. The Flip side...Call it GOOD or BAD... but he is going to spend the next few years(at least a couple of them) outside India. Dude.... We are going to miss your company for sure.

Wishing him "All The Very Best In LIFE". Start a new journey mate...& in this journey try committing some new mistakes!!(Just kidding). The real Testing Times for you will begin now. Living 2600 KMs away from homeland for the first time and that too with hardly any Indians around!! eeeeeeeee...... I can imagine only few things. For sure, You are going to be a lot tougher psychologically when u return India(tu waisa nahi rahega!!).

We'll be looking for a completely transformed YOU .......

Bengali Food......Ahh !!

2008-05-10T23:01:00.005+05:30

After a soporific week at office I had something to cheer this weekend!! I met three of my old friends. Then went to meet two of my Bengali ex-colleagues. We had a very good time pulling each others' legs for few hours while discussing our lives... past, present & future.

Bengali Samithi is around 6Kms from my friends' place. I was very particular about tasting the Fish and few other specialized Bengali dishes. We went there to have food at 9PM. Below is the snap of the fish I have tasted. Its called RUI. I was taken by surprise when they said that this fish is exported to Bengal from Andhra!! I had the most famous Bengali Rasgulla too. Try some Bengali dishes if U get an opportunity. Trust me... they are really worth giving a try.

For now Look at the snap of the dish I had :) Uummmahh........ Yummyyyyy :)

Straight from the Heart

2008-04-27T09:05:00.006+05:30

Few days back I was speaking to Soumya(one of my old friends), who was my classmate in my graduation. We were discussing various topics ranging from Life in India to the Life in America(that is where she currently is) over GTalk. She is a regular visitor of my blog. She asked me the reason for not posting any articles these days. My excuse was "Busy with work in office"!! (Where as the truth is I am too lazy to think of anything). Then came a complement. "All your posts are genuinely 'Straight from the Heart', please keep writing". I was happy(at last I found a living soul on this earth apart from me who visits my blog regularly) & thought of writing an article and dedicate it to this girl(after all she has taken pain to praise me !!).

@Soumya: This post is purely dedicated to you. It took me almost a week to finish this.

Its been almost 2 Years that I passed out of the college. If I remember correctly 27-04-2006 was the last exam which placed a CHECK to my LIFE! Through out my education(in fact even now!!) I kept hearing people say... "You are the architect of your future". Yes. I fully agree. But who is the architect of your best friends' future??!! without whom life is like a Fish out of water. You never know what life has in store for each one of us. You never know to which corner of the world life takes you tomorrow. You never know whom u r going to meet and spend most of ur time with. You never know... You never know.

Like they say "every good journey should come to an end". We meet lot many during the journey. Even before we think of strengthening the relation with them, the journey might come to an end!! That is how LIFE is. So CRUEL. The pain stays for a couple of days and U'll be back to business(someone replacing that vacancy!!). But there will be a vacuum created when the best of friends get separated, which no one can fill!! and when U have a look at the flashback(as I am currently doing) U can find only the traces of those footprints.

Today, if I look back at the past 6years, I feel, there are a few things which I think I should have done much better, there are things which should have left alone, there are things which were(can be) done only by me and there are a few things which were done by others and I ended up being just a spectator !!

These 6years was a lot of learning. A lot has changed. The way I perceive things, Knowing what is good for me, Building relations, Keeping my temper under control, Accepting Change to name a few. Gone through various critical phases. I have met the Good, the Bad & the Ugly. There were unforgettable best days in my life. Not to forget there were TONS of bad memories TOOOOO. The so called Self-Confidence was hammered & I have bitten the dust on various occasions. Nevertheless its been fun all way. I invite troubles so that I can push myself into the quicksand hoping there will be for sure a way to come out of it. And each time I do, people call me CRAZY. I keep reminding them the saying..."Always take risks in life. If you win U'll be successful. Else U'll be Wise". I have learnt LIFE is these 6years. But there is a lot to LIVE & LEARN.

Always remember:

Accept the things which U cant Change, Change the things which U cant Accept !
There is nothing called LUCK. Its just CRAP(Even if I use it... I never mean it) !!
Money can TALK. Its proven !!!
Gone are the good days. But, the Best Days are yet to come !!!!

Ciao
:) SunnyDepp :)

Reliance Foray

2008-03-18T21:10:00.011+05:30

What First comes to ur mind when u hear the word 'Reliance' ?(now plzzz dont ask for options !)

YES, I am speaking about Brand Reliance. For me, the first thing that strikes is INDIA. Reliance being the largest and the only private sector company from India to strike into Global Fortune 500, has almost become a synonym for India ! for the simple reason that there are hardly any such sectors left where Reliance hasn't step yet. From Food to Footwear, Technology to Telecom, Clothes to Jewelery, Petroleum to Natural Resources, Financial Services to Credit Cards.... their foray is practically into everything. They have conquered at least some part of each space. When it comes to few Verticals like Telecom, Petroleum etc., chunk of the portion is occupied by this Indian Giant.

What prompted me to write this article is the fact that Reliance has recently opened its first Jewelery shop in HYDERABAD !! I thought of listing down all the companies owned by Ambani Bros across all the sectors. I managed to list one & a half dozen of them. I am sure, I must have missed at least a dozen more.

Listed Companies:

INDUSTRIES
ENERGY
POWER
INFRASTRUCTURE
CAPITAL
COMMUNICATIONS
NATURAL RESOURCES
PETROLEUM
ADLABS

Subsidaries/Unlisted Companies:

VIMAL
TRENDS
BIG FM
WEBWORLD
ZAPAK.COM
FOOTWEAR
WELLNESS
FRESH
JEWELERY

Add to these the recently purchased Mumbai IPL cricket team by Sr. Ambani(Mukhesh) !! Papa Dhirubhai Ambani ne har ek ke paas 'Roti,Kapada,Makhaan aur Mobile' hone ka sapna dekha and his dream turned into a reality.....aur Beta Anil Ambani ne har ek ke paas 'Roti,Kapada,Makhaan,Mobile aur Power' hone ka sapna dekh raha hai !! & only time will tell whether he will be able to succeed in this mission.

What's Buzzing ?

Reliance Retail has recently launched its first iSTORE in HYDERABAD !! By this time u must have guessed what this could be. Yeah.... APPLE-RELIANCE tie up, to sell Apple products exclusively in Indian markets. Also heard on the street that Reliance is planning to tie up with major European fashion brands like Vercase ! I am excited !!

What NEXT ?

Come on Ambani Bros, be more ambitious. Here are few more sectors which needs the attention of u guys!!

Automobiles
Agriculture
Capital Goods
Electronics
Fertilizers
Aerospace
Media
Travel & Logistics

I am sure u'll give a good run for the money of ur rivals....If u dont want to start from the scratch then u guys can always adopt the inorganic way of expanding the business(as u did in the case of ADLABS!!). Start-up or Buy/Acquire/Merge with an existing ones.... do something or the other.

U can always avail my help in doing so !!
:-) Cheers :-)

I, Yousuf & my handicapped Bike

2008-02-29T07:50:00.005+05:30

For sure, We all will miss this date for the next 4 years. This day(29.02.2008) will remain in my memory for long.

It was quite hectic day at office today, as it is for the past couple of months. Suddenly things have turned around bcoz of few unexpected changes. I hardly find time these days to play Pacman. But, LIFE GOES ON.

Our team will be in a weekend mood right from the time they step-in to the office on the friday morning(only). Colourful dresses, Beautiful, Charming & Fresh faces, fully energetic and enthu with fun filled ambiance. They hardly work post lunch and start counting minutes(& literally seconds also) for the clock to tick 6PM. and slowly people vanish. Today, it was only Me & one of my colleagues (two poor souls) who were slogging hard even at 9PM. I worked till 9PM and thought...... ENOUGH. What am I doing on a Friday evening @ office? We thought of calling it a day and leave office. We decided to come on SAT,SUN & wrap the things. It was about 9.15PM by the time we reached cellar parking.

We both stay at two different locations. He needs to catch an auto and I have my bike(partially handicapped). We both wished good night to one another and he left the place. I went to take my bike and realized that it got PUNCTURED !! F**K, man, it is already 9.15 PM. I asked the watch man if there are any mechanic shops nearby. He gave me the direction. I called up my colleague & luckily he didnot catch the auto till that time. I asked him to come back to parking. With his company I went to that mechanic shop which is some 200Metres from my office(luckily). Thank God ! It is still open. We asked the mechanic to stay there for another 10 mins, so that we can get the BIKE from parking. I had only 100bucks in my wallet that time. I thought of borrowing few more from my colleague & When I asked him, he said he has purchased a Quarter WHISKEY just now !! and he is left only with sufficient amount to reach home. We went to the ICICI BANK ATM in our office. This damn thing as always was not working ! We went to CITI BANK ATM on the opposite side of the road(hoping CITI BANK ATM for sure will have money). After waiting for 15 mins in queue we went IN. But even this was not working(amazing... only ICICI debit cards are not working!!). Then we walked a lil more(around 200 mts) and went to another ICICI ATM. Even this was not working !!! Shocked,Confused,Amazed,Perplexed.....& asked the watchman of ICICI ATM the reason. He said there is some problem with ICICI servers & hence no ICICI debit card will work.

We both looked at each other's faces faces and laughed at our fate for sometime. Helpless. I asked my colleague to leave to his home. I took my bike from office parking and went to the mechanic to check if he can fix the puncture without changing the tube, thus saving money. He said if the tube needs to be changed then it costs Rs.170. And I am sure the tube needs to be changed coz, I am facing this situation for the second consecutive day(forgot to mention Feb 28th night's experience. Bike had a puncture the earlier day also!!). And I had only 100 bucks.

I explained my current financial status to that kid. His name is Yousuf(around 14) .

This is how the conversation went...

ME: suno... koi ATM kaam nahi kar raha hai. aur mere paas ye 100 Rupees hai. Aap tube change kar dena, aur mera office ka ID card rakhlena. Mein kal subha office aanese pehle tumse leloonga.

Yousuf: nahi bhaiyya, mujhe account apne saab ko dikhana padega.

ME: bhai, mein wo jo company dikhraha hai na. usme hi kaam kartha hoon. Apna ID card ke bina andar jaa nahi sakhta hoon. Samaj rahe ho? agar chahiye tho ye 100 lo aur kaam suru karo. Mein baaki paisa kal subha dedoonga nad apna ID apse loonga. theek hai ?

Yousuf: bhaiyya, aap ab phir se ATM try karo. upar satillite ki problem hogi. mujhe bhi aksar hota hai. 15-20 mins mein theek ho jayega. Aap phir se try karo. Is baar pakka theek hogaya hoga.

ME: bahut late hogaya, mein ATM ke paas hi kaha khada rahoon, raat ke dus bajgaye. Agar karna hai tho, kaam suru karo aur ye lo mera ID. varna, mein apna bike office mein chod doonga aur auto se ghar jaonga.

Yousuf: aap kitne baje office aaoge?

ME: subha ke 11 baje.

Yousuf: aap pakka kal aaoge na? kal saturday hai na.

ME: kal saturday hai, isiliye 11-12 baje aaonga.

Yousuf: chalo, theek hai. mein tube change tho karoonga, lekin bike theek hone ke baad, ek baar ATM chalo. Agar paisa niklega tho abhi dedo.

ME: chal, theek hai. fatafat kaam suru kar.

He started the work. He is a kid and half of the work was done by ME !! Finally he opened the tube and said bhaiyya, nalli nikhal gaya. tube change karna hi padega ! ( my guess was right!).
Then, he said, bhiayya, tyre bhi bahut puraana hogaya, grip nahi hai. Naya tube daloonga tho bhi, agar chotisi phattar se bhi puncture ho saktha hai. woh second hand tyre jo dikhai dera, vuse replace karu ?

ME: kitna me milega woh purana trye?

Yousuf: Rs. 200

ME: Tyre + Tube = Rs.275 ??

Yousuf: chalo, Rs.300 dedo.

ME: OK

He replaced both the tube and tyre. Then we went to ATM again. and luckily this time ATM is working !! I gave him his 300 bucks and said THANQ BOSS.

How famous are you ?

2008-02-22T08:28:00.001+05:30

I dont really know what I want to write in this article. Today,I just want to post something on this blog. So thought of scribbling some random thoughts that were going on my mind at this point in time.

How do you generally measure SUCCESS ??

Now don't tell me it all depends on your perception. YES.... it is, but, still I want to count the ways we can measure someone's success.

Either it should be in terms of Money or Name/Fame(of course 'Name' for Good cause, otherwise it would be Blame!!). Fame and Money go hand in hand. Somehow I feel, both are inter related. If you have Money, (which is as sweet as Honey) Fame will follow and vice-versa.

I tried to prove my hypothesis wrong. But realized that i failed to prove what i want to prove. I considered few examples...oh sorry.. not few....TENS of examples.Of course, all of them are Celebrities. And in this process I hardly found anyone who has only One of the above mentioned qualities. Almost all the successful people have both the things with an exception. If a person has more money then he has more fame but the other way around need not be true. A person might be famous but he need not be as rich(But, RICH for sure!).

Long time back I read a book called 'YOU CAN WIN' written by SHIV KERA, which I am sure most of you must have read. He has a formula to measure success.

SUCCESS=(WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED)/(WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING).

Now if you consider this formula has got only numerator and a denominator, and one of the simplest formulae you might have ever come across, then you are seriously mistaken. There are hell lot of parameters that come into picture when you deeply analyze it.

Now, I have discovered an interesting and a funny way to identify how famous a person is(in other words, how successful he is). In an era of Cyber Revolution, I don't think there would be any person on this planet who knows a lil bit of computers and don't know anything about GOOGLE. I tried to search in GOOGLE with keyword as my NAME. The whole idea is to know if I figure in any of the search results ! And if I appear in the search results then at which position. What is the PAGE RANK of that web page. Fortunately the very first link gave details about me !!! Of course, details mentioned about me in my very own blog. Then I tried to check the Page Rank of my blog. Unfortunately, the Page Rank is Zero :( . No surprises, as I was expecting this number.

Its a known fact that the celebrities appear at the top of the list. AM I A CELEBRITY ?! ALMOST FAMOUS !!

What I am & What I want to BE

2008-02-19T07:35:00.008+05:30

Ever gave a thought to explore urself ?

This taught was haunting me for the past few months ! But I am lazy enough to detour this thought and procrastinate it. It is highly impossible to come out of your comfort zone and make a SWOT analysis kinda. At this juncture, I remember the old adage "Procrastination is the fault most people put off correcting".

Finally , i thought of breaking the ICE and started writing this article. If you also fall under this category, then please, at least for your sake, break the JINX and come out of those woods.

If interested in knowing more about me, then continue reading....

THIS IS WHAT I AM !

I am a Lazy bug, probably the laziest you can ever find around you.
I Hate to think, at times become over confident & act in haste .
I am a spoiled BRAT, I am a firm believer of "Doing what you like is Freedom, Liking what you do is Happiness".
I love to watch Hollywood movies, but unfortunately never understood the complete plot in any of the fiction movies :(
I am a Cricket Crazy fan. Sometimes even skip the office work to watch Indian matches !
I treat books as sleeping pills ! I never faced the problem of Insomnia in my entire life, books are perfect remedy for me. One dose = one page of any book(novels are no exception) and I'll soon get into deep sleep after which no one can wake me up !! & the next day, I end up reading the same page again !!
My new year resolution last year was "to go for Jogging early in the morning". My new year resolution this year was also "to go for Jogging early in the morning"! My new year resolution next year can also be "to go for Jogging early in the morning" !!!
I loose interest in many of the things very quickly. I can give N number of such things in my life. But few things which fascinated me like nothing else are STOCK MARKETS, CRICKET, F1, QUOTATIONS, PANIPURI, BLACK Colour, STEVE JOBS/APPLE PRODUCTS, MUSIC OF B^3 (BRYAN ADAMS, BACKSTREETBOYS & BOYZONE) + ENRIQUE + SONU NIGAM, HRITHIK ROSHAN, DIL CHAHTA HAI(must have watched it a dozen times fully & another dozen times partially !).

THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO BE !!

I want to hate the word Procrastination. Delete it from my WORD WEB Dictionary !
I want to continue going to the office late on a consistent basis. But still be able to complete all the work given by sharp 6.30 PM. This is 'WHAT BUSINESS DEMANDS', 'HIGH PERFORMANCE, DELIVERED' !!
I want to be LOVED & more LOVABLE than i am presently.
I want to be quick witted & take my sense of humor to the Zenith.
I want to watch AAMIR KHAN more frequently in future, of course in movies.
LETS GET A BIT MORE SERIOUS from now... I want to increase my concentration levels and prepare more seriously for CAT 08, so that i can crack CAT 09 and break into one of the TOP 20 INDIAN B-Schools and start doing my dream course "MBA" with specialization in FINANCE by 2010.
I want to increase my READING SPEED.
I want to be a millionaire by the time i reach 30. This is the same target which WARREN BUFFET wanted to reach when he was in teenage. I have started a lil late, but no worries..... LET ME GIVE MY BLOODY BEST !
I want to own a FORMULA ONE TEAM in future. Am I not too greedy?? Yeah... even I think so. Chalo... if not a TEAM at least a RED FERRARI CAR with V10 engine*(might get upgraded with time).
I want to clear all my Current Credit Card debts in another 2 quarters & get make fresh debts in order to buy a new power bike !!
I want to own at least a piece of all APPLE products. Primarily an iMAC so that I can trash my WINDOWS through my back DOOR.
I want to be a synonym of MAVERICK :)

Will jot down few more as soon it strikes me. Thanks for sparing your invaluable time and reading this non-sense stuff written by a Maverick, who is still in the process of discovering who he actually is !!

You can soon join this elite club by penning down what you want to be in future. TRUST ME....ITS FUN !

Lessons from January 2008

2008-01-24T08:53:00.000+05:30

Lessons from January 2008
--Udayan Mukherjee

The thing about life is that one makes mistakes. Many mistakes were made in the second half of 2007 and those sins have to be washed away by blood, such is the way of financial markets. Some participants will go down under and never be able to get back to the market again but most will survive. The pain will linger for many months, maybe years but lessons have to be learnt. Every such debacle has lessons for us and the sooner we forget them the more we suffer.

The first lesson is not to let stock price performance become the sole reason for buying, a mistake which was made in abundance in the last 3 months. What couldn't be explained by fundamentals was credited to liquidity. The present lost all relevance as people chose to focus on the distant future, perhaps simply because the present could never justify those ticker prices; only a hazy dream of the future could. Traders and investors had no time for fundamental analysts, in many cases they were labelled "cribbing fools". Chartists became the most celebrated tribe on the street as only they could see and predict the one way run to glory for many of the hot stocks even as fundamental watchers cringed at valuations....till the music stopped. Don't get me wrong, charts do work in trending markets but once stock prices veer away completely from fundamental value, people need to get careful. But they never are. Now that the blinkers are off, people should ask themselves why stocks like RNRL, Ispat, RPL, Essar oil and Nagarjuna fertilisers have lost 50-70% of their value. It is simply because their stock prices had snapped all connection with underlying business fundamentals, earnings and value. Their stock prices became the only reasons for buying them which works for a while but not forever.

The other big lesson, one which should have been driven in earlier in May 2006, is the danger of overextending oneself in the futures market. The lure of stock futures is easy to understand. Put in some margin, take a big exposure on a fast moving stock, make a killing when prices shoot up. Repeat exercise. Just that people forgot that prices may also come down and at a pace which noone can even imagine, maybe their friendly stockbrokers forgot to tell them that part of the story. The result : unbridled speculation that ran into lakhs of crores, excesses that we are paying for today. Even this fall will not cure investors of their love for futures speculation but if at least some amount of caution is injected it would have been a worthwhile learning. Futures are not toys for amateurs, they are time bombs in the hands of inexpert and inexperienced traders, it's only a matter of when the fuse runs out.

The other learning which I hope will play out in the future, as it has in the past, is that it pays to be brave in times of panic such as these. If I was allowed to invest myself , which I am not, I would have no hesitation in deploying serious money into the market today, knowing fully well that prices may fall more tomorrow. And I would be standing there tomorrow to buy more of the same, till my money ran out. India is going to be a terrific stock market story for many years to come, even an intermediate bearish patch cannot shake that conviction of mine. At best, one will have to wait a bit for the returns to follow. That's alright. You are happy to put money in a bank FD and then wait for one full year to collect that measly 8%, aren't you? Then why does the stock market need to give you 20% every month? In the last one year, I haven't seen so many good stocks trade at such mouth watering levels. Forget trading, avoid the duds which were fuelled up by operators, just go out and buy those bluechips. They will deliver, even if there is a global market meltdown for a while, and if you are a bit patient you will be rewarded. But do remember January 2008, as history will repeat itself again in the future. Just that our memories tend to be too short and our greed too much.

Udayan Mukherjee

Requirement not captured properly !

2008-01-12T08:46:00.000+05:30

Requirement not captured properly:

The wife was very unhappy with her car and complained a lot to her husband:

Knowing her birthday was coming up shortly, she said to her husband...
'Buy me a surprise for my birthday!' she said.
'Something that accelerates from 0 to 100 in 4 seconds! And I would prefer a blue one!'

Happy and excited she was counting down the days to her birthday.

And on the day she finally she got the beautiful present her husband thoughtfully bought....

Scroll Down......

WEIGHING MACHINE

The poor guy is dead today, and his wife's in jail for murder !

How the companies got names-A-Z

2008-01-12T08:38:00.000+05:30

ABN AMRO- In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands) . In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABN and Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.

Accenture- Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norwayas part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming) . Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Adidas- from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Adobe- came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .

AltaVista- Spanish for "high view".

Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)

AMD- Advanced Micro Devices.

Apache- The name was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (IndÃ©), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it's considered a cute name that stuck: its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'a patchy' server â€" thus the name Apache.

Apple- for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.

AT&T- American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.

Bauknecht- Founded as an electrotechnical workshop in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht .

BBC- Stands for British Broadcasting Corporation.

BenQ - Bringing ENjoyment and Quality to life

Blaupunkt- Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

BMW- abbreviation of Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Factories)

Borealis - The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, is the celestial phenomenon that features bursts of light in colourful patterns dancing across the night skies of the north. Borealis, inspired from the shining brilliance of the Northern Lights, was formed in 1994 out of the merger between two northern oil companies, Norway's Statoil and Finland's Neste.

BP - formerly British Petroleum, now "BP" (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000).

BRAC- abbreviation for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, world's largest NGO (non governmental organization) . It works in development programs around the world.

Bridgestone- named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (??) means "stone bridge", i.e. "bridge of stone".

Bull- Compagnie des machines Bull was founded in Paristo exploit the patents for punched card machines taken out by a Norwegian engineer, Fredrik Rosing Bull.

Cadillac- Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.

Canon- Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

CGI- from the first letter of Information Management Consultant in french (Conseiller en Gestion et Informatique) .

Cisco- short for San Francisco . It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co" -- Computer Information Services was the department at StanfordUniversityt hat the founders worked in.

COBRA- Computadores Brasileiros, "Brazilian Computers", electronics and services company, was the first state-owned designer and producer of computers in the 1970s, later acquired by the Banco do Brasil.

Coca-Cola- Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.

Colgate-Palmolive- formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.

Compaq- from "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.

Comsat - an American digital telecommunications and satellite company, founded during the President Kennedy era to develop the technology. Contraction of Communications Satellites.

Daewoo- the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.

Dell- named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.

DHL- the company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company's moniker.

eBay- Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " EchoBay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Epson - Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"

Fanta- was originally invented by Max Keith in Germanyin 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from byproducts of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.

Fazer - named after its founder, Karl Fazer.

Fiat- acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin).

Fuji- from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji.

Google- the name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

Haier- Chinese ? "sea" and ? (a transliteration character; also means "you" in Literary Chinese)

HP- Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Hitachi- old place name, literally "sunrise"

Honda- from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda

Honeywell- from the name of Mark Honeywell founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in 1963.

Hotmail- Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" - the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)

HSBC- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Hyundai- connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.

IBM- named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.

ICL- abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK's largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.

IKON - copier company name derived from I Know One Name.

Intel- Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise" -- not a good choice for an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else. Then, using initial syllables from INTegrated ELectronics, Noyce and Moore came up with Intel. To avoid potential conflicts with other companies of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)

Interland - a web hosting provider formally known as Micron Computer, Inc. which was named either after InternetLandor the combination of the largest acqusition it performed, Interliant with the word Land.

Kawasaki- from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki

Kodak - Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman . The letter "K" was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

Konica- it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

Korg - Formed from the surnames of the founders, Tsutomu Katoh and Tadashi Osanai, combined with the letters "rg" from the word organ.

LG - combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar. (In Mexicopublicists explained the name change to the public as an abbreviation to LÃnea Goldstar Spanish for Goldstar Line)

L'OrÃ©al- In 1907, EugÃ¨ne Schueller, a young French chemist, developed an innovative hair-color formula. He called his improved hair dye AurÃ©ole.

Lotus Software - Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Lucent Technologies - a spin-off from AT&T, it was named Lucent (meaning "luminous" or "glowing with light") because "light as a metaphor for visionary thinking reflected the company's operating and guiding business philosophy," according to the Landor Associates staff who chose the name. Source: Design Management Journal 8:1 (Winter 1997).

Lycos- from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.

Mazda Motor- from the company's first president, Jujiro Matsuda . In Japanese, no syllables are ever stressed and some inner syllables are virtually skipped. Thus, Matsuda is pronounced "Matsda". To make the name fly better outside of Japan, the spelling was changed to Mazda.

McDonald's- from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald 's restaurant in 1940.

Mercedes- This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.

MGM- Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.

Micron - computer memory producer named after the microscopic parts of its products. The official name was Micron Computer, Inc. Since, the company has become Interland, a web hosting provider, after selling/spinning off its RAM division and closing down its computer division, licensing the name. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta.

Microsoft- coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

midPhase- the post-dotcom era gave using the .com in a companies official name untrendy. A new dotcom company may be named traditionally, in midPhase's case it was named midPhase Services, Inc., the midPhase stands for Middle Phase, or middle of the road.

Mitsubishi - The name Mitsubishi (??) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means water chestnut, and from here rhombus, which is reflected in the company's logo.

Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the " ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.

Mozilla Foundation - from the name of the web-browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen , founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.

MRF- Madras Rubber Factory, founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946. He started with a toy balloon-manufacturi ng unit at Tiruvottiyur, Chennai (then called Madras). In 1952, he began manufacturing tread-rubber, and in 1961, tyres.

Nero - Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome.

Netscape- named by first marketing employee Greg Sands, in a panic when the Universityof Illinoisthreatened to sue the new company for its original name, Mosaic. Netscape then paid Landor $50,000 to design a logo.

Nike - named for the Greek goddess of victory.

Nikon - the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

Nissan- the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".

Nokia- started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.

Nortel - The Nortel Networks name came from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.

Novartis- after the Latin expression "novae artes" which means something like "new skills".

Oracle - Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Technology Inc, to the name of the product.

Pepsi - Pepsi derives its name from (treatment of) dyspepsia, an intestinal ailment.

Philips - Royal Philips Electronics was founded in 1891, by brothers Gerard (the engineer) and Anton (the entrepreneur) Philips .

Qantas- From its original name, Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services.

Red Hat- Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as 'that guy in the red hat'. He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.

Reebok- another spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.

SAAB- founded in 1937 in Swedenas "Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget" (Swedish Aeroplane Company) abbreviated SAAB.

Samsonite- Samsonite was launched as a brand in 1941, receiving its name from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.

Samsung- meaning three stars in Korean.

Sanyo- The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is "??" (literally, "Three Oceans")

SAP- "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formerly "SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung " (German for "System analysis and program development" ), formed by 4 ex- IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applicatio n s/Projects' group of IBM.

SEGA - "Service Games of Japan" (SeGa) Founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japanfor use on American military bases.

Sharp - Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.

Shell - Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already successfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.

Siemens - founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen- Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.

Sprint- from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. Back in the day, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.

Sun Microsystems - its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at StanfordUniversity, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They didn't.

Suzuki - from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki

Tesco - Founder Jack Cohen, who from 1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word "TESCO".

Toshiba- was founded by the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).

Toyota- from the founder's name Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.

Unisys - made-up name for the company that resulted from the combination of two old mainframe computer companies, Burroughs and Sperry [Sperry Univac/Sperry Rand]. It "united" two incompatible ranges. Unisys was briefly the world's second-largest computer company, after IBM.

Verizon- A portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

Vodafone- is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Its name is made up of VOice, DAta, TeleFONE. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on the 1 January 1985.

Volvo- From the Latin word "volvo", which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

Xerox - The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.

Yahoo! - a "backronym" for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos

Why they are named so ?

2008-01-12T07:56:00.000+05:30

Yahoo!

The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos ie.. it stands for

Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

Xerox

The Greek root "xer" means dry. The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product Xerox as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying.

Sun Microsystems

Founded by four Stanford University buddies, Sun is the acronym for Stanford University Network.

Sony

From the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

SAP

"Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by four ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applicatio ns/Projects' group of IBM.

Red Hat

Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!

Oracle

Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such).

Motorola

Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

Microsoft

It was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

Lotus

Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from the lotus position or 'padmasana.' Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Intel

Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ' Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Hewlett-Packard

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Hotmail

Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing email via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casings.

Google

The name started as a jockey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google

Cisco

The name is not an acronym but an abbreviation of San Francisco . The company's logo reflects its San Francisco name heritage. It represents a stylized Golden Gate Bridge .

Apple Computers

Favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened his employees to suggest a name for his company by 5 o'clock . as no one came forward with a name & clock ticks 5, he was having apple in his hand & hence he named it as APPLE

Apache

It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'A PAtCHy' server - thus, the name Apache.

The hot iceman

2007-11-22T07:26:00.000+05:30

He's a man of few words. And when he does say something, it usually is not very interesting but put him in a car and Kimi Raikkonen lets his driving do the talking.

Cold Mountain In the cold and freezing climes of Espoo, on October 17, 1979 an addition by the name of Kimi Matias Raikkonen was made to the world. Just 22 years later, that name became one of the most exciting talents ever to step into the world of Formula One. Born to Puala and Matti Raikkonen, little Kimi had his first glimpse of a racetrack at the age of seven and by 10, he was the king of the karting track, even though it stretched family's already meagre finances. With brother Rami also keen on making a career out of racing, the Raikkonens sacrificed a lot to allow their sons to race. The family had such limited means they lived for years with no indoor toilet this in frigid Finland.

So one of the first things Raikkonen did after he signed the contract with McLaren in 2001 was pay to have his parents' house remodelled. Legend has it that the laid-back Finn was asleep 20 minutes before his first Grand Prix and enjoys his snooze so much that he still needs to be woken up before qualifying and races.

Today he's the highest paid driver in the sport with a salary of around $40 million and is ranked fifth in the Forbes list of richest athletes. Ice runs in his veins Maybe the cold of Finland has something to with his temperament — cool and calculating. He seems to be without nerves and his driving is like that — cold-blooded but fast — which prompted the nickname, 'Iceman', which is cleverly inscribed on his helmet as well. Put him behind the wheel of a racing car and he becomes brave to the point of lunacy. Maybe that's why he enjoyed 'Gone in 60 Seconds.'

The 28-year-old Ferrari driver is taciturn but not colourless. The Eminem-fan may seem like a man with no or little emotion but he's fond of a tipple (though he lists apple juice as his favourite drink), is married to a former beauty queen and is capable of pulling the odd wild stunt.

To Jenni, with love The blonde Finn tied the knot with former Miss Scandinavia Jenni Maria Dahlman on July 31, 2004. Seeing the taller Jenni walk hand-in-hand with 'Kimster' used to be a common sight at GPs but now that Jenni is more involved with her own passion, her appearances have become rather infrequent. Like a loving-husband, Raikkonen indulges his wife's hobby horse-riding and has bought her three horses Liber, McKinley and Caland. To relax after a few hectic weeks at the tracks, Raikkonen and Jenni head to their holiday villa in Porkkala where they jet ski, sail and even cook together, with their pet Alsatian in tow.

One more time....Loose... Loose... Loose Control !!

2007-11-16T23:34:00.000+05:30

A.R.Rehman's track from RDB..... "One more time....Loose... Loose... Loose Control !!" will suit perfectly for Sachin Ten(short of 100)dulkar under the current circumstances !!!

If only Sachin Tendulkar had listened to his son, he may have a century of centuries in international cricket now. When the master batsman fell for 97 in the 4th ODI against Pakistan, it was the 23rd time in Tests and ODIs that he has got out in the 90s.

In ODIs, he has got out in the 90s as many as 16 times and in Tests seven times.

He has 78 centuries to his credit - 41 in ODIs and 37 in Tests, and the 23 missed ones would have taken his tally to 101. Unbelievably, he has fallen in the 90s seven times this year. The 42nd century is turning out to be jinxed for Tendulkar who has fallen in the 'nervous 90s' for six times this year (19 matches), and second time in the ongoing series. He fell short by just one run on three occasions.

Tendulkar faced a similar problem at the start of his one-day career and it took him 79 matches to score his first century that came almost after five years since the start of his career. But once he scored his first ton - against Australia in Sri Lanka at Colombo in the Singer World series - he scored centuries at will. But of late, the century has eluded him, and the last time he crossed the three-figure mark was against the West Indies in January this year at Vadodara.

But this is what he has to say after the match.... "I guess I got into this wrong habit of getting out in the 90's. But for me, what matters and counts most is that India won." A real team man !

ISB 2 !!

2007-11-13T22:07:00.000+05:30

After Hyderabad, it could be Sonepat's turn.

Another Indian School of Business (ISB) is taking shape. Rajat Gupta, the former CEO of McKinsey & Company and now a senior partner in the professional services firm, along with his team is planning to set up a second ISB, this time in the North.

The existing ISB in Hyderabad was Gupta's brainchild and is among India's most coveted business schools. It is spread over 260 acres of land and was set up in December 1999 at a cost of around Rs 100 crore.

A possible site could be Sonepat in Haryana, which is a less than two hours' drive from Delhi. The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is planning an education city there. When contacted, an official of the state's technical education department confirmed the HUDA move, but declined to comment on whether ISB had approached the state for land. However, HUDA has no plans to allot land at subsidised rates or free to any education body, the official added.

The new school could be an extension of ISB or could have a new name altogether. Gupta and his team are also said to be in talks with the London Business School, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University for an academic partnership with the new school. These schools are existing academic partners of the Hyderabad-based ISB.

"Funds for the new school are already pouring in and are not a problem. Donors who funded the existing ISB are ready to give money for the new school as well,” the sources said.

Besides, new partners are also being looked at," the sources added.

ISB runs postgraduate programmes in management, leading to a Master of Business Administration degree, post doctoral programmes as well as an executive education programme for serving executives. The average domestic salary offered to ISB payouts this year was Rs 15 lakh with the highest domestic offer being Rs 43 lakh. The average international salary was $135,000, the highest being $269,000.

The ISB board comprises top names from the world of business like Anil Ambani, Rahul Bajaj, Yogi Deveshwar, Adi Godrej, KV Kamath and Uday Kotak.

Forget iPhone, the Gphone is here !!

2007-11-13T21:32:00.000+05:30

Last June APPLE(one of my DREAM companies) has created waves in the USA by releasing its most awaited gadget---- iPhone! iPhone enthusiasts were literally fighting for the iPhone in market ! & the world just kept staring at USA with jealousy(coz iPhone was not released all over the world)!

After 6months.... NOVEMBER 2007
Google(another DREAM company!)... the nearly $13.5 billion search engine major has officially announced its product--- the GPhone. It is expected to launch this Gphone by mid 2008 in collaboration with Taiwan major HTC, a mobile manufacturing company specialized in making smart phones and PDAs.
The good news is, Google has started talks with service providers in India for an exclusive launch on one of their networks. Talks are believed to be taking place with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, respectively India's first and third largest mobile telephony operators, and state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam.

Simultaneous launch across the US and Europe is expected, and announcements would be sent to media firms in India and other parts of the world. US regulatory approval, which is expected soon, is the only hurdle that Google is waiting to cross. Google plans to invest $7-8 billion for its global telephony foray!!

Gphone is likely to be a touch screen. The most attractive features should be access to GOOGLE EARTH & GTALK !!

Few sample pics of Gphone for you are here... NJOY !!

NOTE: The images above are just prototypes. Those are the existing HTC models & need not be original models of Gphone !!

QUOTABLE QUOTES

2007-10-16T07:44:00.000+05:30

I am a huge fan of QUOTATIONS !

Here are few of the best QUOTES i found over the years.The best ones(for me) are marked in RED.

"A book of quotations can never be complete!". I appreciate if you can take few minutes to recall the quotes which i might have missed here and post them as a comment.

Nothing in life is to be feared It is only to be understood --Marie Curie

What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail? --Dr. Robert Schuller

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong! -- Oscar Wilde

Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change --Confucius

Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them --Obi Wan Kenobi,Star Wars

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, and you’ll become a philosopher --Socrates

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra .

Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.

Everything is easy, finding it out is hard.

It is impossible to love and be wise --Francis Bacon

Never give advice - a wise man won't need it, a fool won't heed it.

Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence --Spanish proverb

A book of quotations...can never be complete --Robert M. Hamilton

Be a friend to you; then others will --Mel .I.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly --Robert F. Kennedy

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils --Hector Louis Berlioz

Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.--David Lloyd George

Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.--Josephus Daniels

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

I don't rent space to anyone in my head. --A guy on Candid Camera who responded to Mr.Funt, when asked why he had not gotten upset

Procrastination is the fault most people put off correcting.

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.--Vernon Sanders Law

There are no perfect men in this world, only perfect intentions

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds.

Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

The most successful people are those who are good at plan B

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

So lets share ! Please post your quotes here as comments !!

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish !!

2007-10-02T10:14:00.000+05:30

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 @ STANFORD.

" I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much. "

Here are the links to watch the video..
link 1
link 2

I hope u all liked his speech.

Steve the iCON

2007-10-02T08:43:00.000+05:30

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs....the human whom i adore the most,the human who is the source of inspiration for many,the human who motivated millions around the world,the human who fought with death and won the battle,the human who is responsible for today's GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE(GUI), the KING of technology,the EMPEROR of brand marketing,the GOD of innovation,the impetus for APPLE, an innate genius,a MAVERICK, a pure soul & an iCON.

After mentioning this much about him if i still say he is just a normal human-being,it is definitely injustice! For me he is not just a human,he is a perfect living LEGEND & PURE SOUL!!

STEVE STEVE STEVE in my blood !!
STEVE STEVE STEVE u ROCK !!

APPLE-MICROSOFT rivalry still continues......

Both the companies are the best in its kind....but...the fact remains. Fact is that Bill Gates' WINDOWS is the copied version of STEVE JOBS' MAC OS !!

MAC OS X 89 = WINDOWS 95 !!

MAC TIGER 10.5 = WINDOWS VISTA !!

This was the first time these two appeared together on stage since 1983. In 1991 they were photographed together for an interview. In 1997, Gates appears via satellite during a Jobs talk. The New York Times was unable to get a photographer into this 2007 event so The NYT online ran this picture.

FUN MAZA is really FUN

2007-09-30T17:55:00.000+05:30

Ever tried to fool anyone by sending a funny mailer?

FUNNY MAILER?? wondering what is it??
yeah... even my reaction was the same when i heard it for the first time.

Lets assume that u have a friend who is a die-hard fan of BILL GATES. U wanted to fool him with billgates emailID. And billgates@microsoft.com can easily be the original email ID of BILL GATES. Now,can anyone send u a mail from billgates@microsoft.com?? the answer is NO... except BILL GATES himself or anyone who knows his password, no one can send u the mail from his email ID.

HEY WAIT A MIN...funny mailer makes it possible.

U can send a mail to anyone with any email ID. All U need to do is CLICK HERE and fill in the details(don't forget the message u wanted to send) and then SUBMIT it.
Thats it... your job is DONE!! The mail will be sent and your friend will be fooled!!

For example...
SEND a mail with ID billgates@microsoft.com to ur friend xyz@yahoo.com with a message saying you have been offered a job in microsoft with a pay package of ___ !!
Even if your friend reacts to that mail and replies to that mail that mail will be sent to the original mail id(if it really exists)!!

For more clarity, try it out urself.U will definitely appreciate the website!!
Here is the link http://www.funmaza.com/fun_mailer.html

have fun !! & play safe!!

Also please read the disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: All the above mentioned content is just to improve the general knowledge of bloggers!! and i am not responsible if u misuse the information and get into any trouble!!
Please use this tool very wisely so that both the parties will have fun. Also C that in this process the existing healthy relationship should not be spoilt!!

Similarities between the 2 winning teams

2007-09-28T18:20:00.000+05:30

As always it was really a good treat to watch IND Vs PAK cricket match on 24th sep 2007. And this time it has become even more special as both the rivals are meeting in the world cup final for the first time! The treat was awesome...as expected the match went into the final over and INDIAN PLAYERS have once again played with the nerves of their fellow INDIANS!! but finally they managed to clinch the thriller.

4days after being crowned the title 'CHAMPIONS' still i can watch all the news channels telecasting those magical moments.Thats the impact it had on us.

I thought of bringing down few similarities between the two world cup winning teams from INDIA. (1) KAPIL DEVILS-1983 & (2) DHONI DEVILS-2007

Here are those....Hope no one have noticed it till now!!
1. Both the teams went in without the COACH and came home with the cup!!
Looks like Indians do well only when they don't have COACH!!
2. Both the teams batted first and successfully defended the score
In 1983 they made 183 batting first and bowled out WI for just 140 !! In2007 they made 159 and bowled out PAK for 154.
3. Both the teams were eliminated in the very first round of the earlier world cup !!
In 1979 world cup they were the last in their pool B there by not-qualifying to the next round.In 2007 world cup they again failed to move on to the next round!!

ONE NIGHT @ HIGHWAY !!

2007-09-27T08:18:00.000+05:30

ONE NIGHT @ HIGHWAY !!

by SUNNY DEPP(not CHETAN BHAGAT!!)

Sunday Night Experience....was so exciting !!

Now that i have started working for the first 5 days in a week,the only way of having fun is to go on a outing at least on the weekends. I along with 3 more friends(Ajay,Ashok & Krishna) planned to go and watch F1-ITALIAN GRAND PRIX on the giant screen @ a TOYOTA showroom which is 15miles away from my place.TOYOTA & PANASONIC sponsor this event in the METROS. I have registered online for the event expecting there would be a bash with all the F1 crazy fans out there!

Excited and i was counting hours(literally MINS also). Forgot to mention the new entrant here... i have purchased a used bike 4 days back.I also gave it for servicing expecting that the mechanic will renovate the bike and hands-over to me next day.But he kept the bike saying there that there is some big repair. He took 3 full days... not a hour less,not a hour more. & along with the bike he also gave me a BILL...which killed me!!It took my breath away and then i repented for buying the used bike!!

Here comes SUNDAY(the FUNDAY)...& the wait is finally over.All set to reach the venue.Ashok and krishna joined us directly at the venue.Then we went in and saw hardly two dozens of ppl. Also noticed that their energy levels are so low that they cant be F1 fans even if they really wanted to be!! and my guess was spot on. They all(except a couple of them) turned out to be novice for this famous sport.Never mind!! We four went & as soon as we stepped we realized that the event is not well organized as we have expected it to be.Adjusting to the environment we went ahead and gave a look at each of the four games they have held.Believe me those sports were good for the age group of under 11 guys...no for 22+. A zig-saw puzzle,A video game on racing,A remote controlled dual car racing and some other crap. In fact all the games were CRAP.The only way of entertainment out there were those four TOYOTA girls in RED skirts!! WOW!! muaaaaaaaaah!! and not to forget the PANASONIC PLASMA TV they placed there to watch the F1 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX LIVE which was dominated by Mclarens. ALONSO won( :( KIMI was third....heart break for we FERRARI fans!).

we stayed back as they announced that there are many goodies to be won in the F1 QUIZ.After a while a quiz master dressed in the official toyota F1 dress came out with cards in his hands.Asked few questions, most of them are easy.We were able to crack almost 70% of them.We also won 5 gifts. want to know what ?? PEN,KEY CHAIN & TOYOTA LABELS!! huh...so disgusting. We traveled for 15miles and came here and this is what they gave us :((

Then came out of the venue and saw that there was a heavy pour of rain in that short stint of 2hrs.We had some stuff in the near by restaurant and thought of leaving from there.

Then the real fun started... (DON'T MISS THIS)
I tried to start my new(old)bike,but it was already drowned in rain. It gave us a lot of trouble.After 20mins of hardwork kicking it hard(by AJAY) and cleaning the SPARK PLUG(by me) and continous support by the spectators(ASHOK & KRISHNA) we were finally able to start it.THANK GOD!! we thought now we can reach home safely.We dropped ashok on the way and we both started moving to our places(ajay was with me).We hardly moved from the place where we left Ashok,then we realised that my bike is punctured!! WHAT THE HELL...it was 8.30 PM and it was raining.F**K......it was a highway and we cant even find a single shop(forget about mechanic shop...we didnot even find a kirana shop!).

Helpless situation...all that we both can do is laugh at one another for a while.We have gone mad for a while laughing..laughing..laughing(coz... we cant CRY)!! We moved on from there giving my bike a push for 3 long kms. Then we found a maruti showroom.We left our bike infront of it and asked the security guard to guard my bike for that night!! Then came a phone call from CHANDU(he is a close friend of we both..he stays near my home).He gave us the most shocking news of the day... "FLYOVER IN PUNJAGUTTA HAS COLLAPSED....15Ppl DEAD!!" It took our breath away once again.
We cant help that....we moved on. Took an auto and reached home safely by 10pm! No power allover because of heavy downpour.We have decided that we both are going to collect my bike(if it is still available at the place where we left!!) early in the morning.

NEXT DAY(monday):
It was 8am.We started at my place...this time we took AJAY'S bike!! Reached the spot at 8.30am.Saw my bike still there!! HURRRAAAAAAAAAAY!! THANKED the security guard and gave him few bucks for taking care of my NEW(OLD) bike.Then again pushed it till the puncture shop. Now another shock! the mechanic says that tyre is torn and u need to replace it with a new one!! costs around 800 bucks.Kya kare... chalo.again in search of a tyre shop.So early in the morning....no moron will open the shops.but still the search was on...we searched all over 3sq.kms but in vain.Came back to the mechanic shop.....now he says that he has got a used tyre and he will replace mine with that!! kutte,kameene...tu ye baat pehle kyun nahi bataya. sara jagah ghoom aaye aur tu ab bataraha hai?? (this was inside my heart... i cant dare to say him directly.) No option left... time to go to office.. so compromised and got the old tyre for my old bike and left the place suspecting this tyre also.
Finally reached the office a couple of hours late!! :((

This is not the first time I have faced such weird situation! Already twice experienced in just around two months.But what makes this one more special is that i need to leave my bike on the highway!!

& all this led to this!!

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=38992037

THANKS FOR SPENDING YOUR PRECIOUS TIME ON THIS READING THIS CRAP..... SORRY FOR PENNING DOWN MY WEIRD EXPERIENCES HERE AND WASTING UR TIME.THE IDEA WAS TO EDUCATE U (so that u will be in a better position to handle if it happens to u tomorrow!!!! ) :-p

CHEEEEEERRRS
:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Power Sixes: Six Indian cos up global IT share 4-fold

2007-09-27T07:36:00.000+05:30

An interesting article from ET on INDIAN IT companies and their market share in terms of REVENUES per ANNUM.

The top six Indian information technology firms have increased their share in the global IT services market from 0.5% in 2001 to 1.9% in 2006, a study by research firm Gartner said.

However, the trend was not limited to the top six Indian firms. The global top 10 IT services firms, also increased their market share from 22.8% in 2001 to 26% in 2006.

The top 10 IT services players globally in 2006 were IBM, EDS, Fujitsu, Accenture, Hewlett Packard, Computer Sciences Corp, Lockheed Martin, Capgemini, ADP and Northrop Grumman, according to the report. The global IT services market itself has grown from $554 billion in 2001 to $672 million in 2006.

Market Share Global Ranking

		2006	2001
TCS	0.6%	35	68
Infosys	0.4%	43	125
Wipro	0.3%	49	130
Cognizant	0.2%	73	212
Satyam	0.2%	79	153
HCL Tech	0.2%	86	160

IBM, with the global number one IT services ranking, had a 7.2% market share. In comparison, the global ranking of the number one India-centric player, TCS, was at 35. TCS’ stated goal is to be among top 10 IT services firms globally by 2010 with $10 billion in revenues.

“TCS has maintained the market share leading position among these (India-centric) providers in 2001 and in 2006... but Infosys has closed the gap substantially moving up 82 positions to a close follower of TCS at position rank of 43 today,” the report pointed out.

The player that improved its market share most was Cognizant that moved from a global rank 212 in 2001 to a rank of 73 in 2006. Both Satyam and HCL were displaced as a result of Cognizant’s gains, according to the report.

While noting that the 44.3% growth exhibited by these providers was impressive, given that the average growth of the market leaders was 5.4%, the report said the growth was impressive despite coming from a smaller base, because North American or European service providers of similar size and competency did not exhibit the same growth rates consistently.

However, assuming TCS grows at the same rate and IBM’s revenues are unchanged, TCS would still only be a little more than a quarter of IBM’s total services revenues in 2010.

“Although these six leading India-centric providers are currently enjoying phenomenal growth rates compared with the overall market growth rate and the top 10 leaders, it would still them take many more years to surpass the top service provider (IBM) or appear among the top three market share leader roles,” the report noted.

courtesy: ECONOMIC TIMES

'F1' is not only just 'F1'

2007-09-25T21:23:00.000+05:30

Few astonishing facts about the most glamorous sport in the world---FORMULA 1

F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, if it were assembled 99.9% correctly, it would still start the race with 80 things wrong!

When an F1 driver hits the brakes on his car he experiences retardation or deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a BRICK wall at 300kmph!!!

F1 car can go from 0 to 160 kph AND back to 0 in FOUR seconds!!!!!!!

F1 car engines last only for about 2 hours of racing mostly before blowing up on the other hand we expect our engines to last us for a decent 20yrs on an average and they quite faithfully DO....that's the extent to which the engines r pushed to perform...

An average F1 driver looses about 4kgs of weight after just one race due to the prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures for little over an hour (Yeah that's right!!!)

At 550kg a F1 car is less than half the weight of a Mini.

To give you an idea of just how important aerodynamic design and added down force can be, small planes can take off at slower speeds than F1 cars travel on the track.

Without aerodynamic down force, high-performance racing cars have sufficient power to produce wheel spin and loss of control at 160 kph. They usually race at over 300 kph.

In a street course race like the Monaco grand prix, the down force provides enough suction to lift manhole covers. Before the race all of the manhole covers on the streets have to be welded down to prevent this from happening!

The refuelers used in F1 can supply 12 liters of fuel per second. This means it would take just 4 seconds to fill the tank of an average 50 liter family car. They use the same refueling rigs used on US military helicopters today.

A TOP F1 pit crews can refuel and change tyres in around 3 seconds. It took me 8 sec to read above point

During the race the tyres loose weight! Each tyre loses about 0.5 kg in weight due to wear.

Normal tyres last 60 000 - 100 000 km. Racing tyres are designed to last 90 - 120 km.

A dry-weather F1 tyre reaches peak operating performance (best grip) when tread temperature is between 900C and 1200C.(Water boils at 100C remember) At top speed, F1 tyres rotate 50 times a second.

And that's not Magic.... Its only the Power of Human Imagination...

BULLS ARE BACK !!!

2007-09-25T09:26:00.000+05:30

THE ROAD AHEAD........BULLS ARE BACK.

NOW WHAT ??

I have posted an article on 10-aug-07 named "stock market blues". Hardly five weeks have passed....today 25-sep-07 things are looking completely different.Every thing looks GREEN.
STOCK MARKETS throughout the world have submerged in the SUB-PRIME saga.No one knew exactly how many days would it take to get out of that trauma.Of course thats the reason y stock markets are so thrilling & exciting .

THE PAST:
BSE-SENSEX has touched the low of 13900 and was hovering & oscillating around 14k for some time. Added to that the situation looked threatening.There was a day when traders lost around 80k CRORES on a single day!! I thought of staying away from these VOLATILE markets for a while until the situation becomes stable.

THE PRESENT:
Dont know when it happened, but .....now things surprisingly are in favour of investors and traders. It took just 45days to reach the zenith(16850) from the nadir(13800). & its going strong.All set today to touch that magical 17000 mark. The REASON ........... INDIA won the T20 world cup!!! So all the barriers and boundaries will be broken and all the hurdles will be crosed in this ecstasy.

THE FUTURE:
If this is not a genuine reason for the markets to cross that 17k mark then here are few more.INDIA's biggest festive season is ahead!! we have just finished ganesh chaturdi.... soon ahead is DURGA PUJA!! if that is not sufficient there is DIWALI ahead of durga puja and there is going to be a 'blast' all over india!! So SEP, OCT & NOV are going to be rocking...3 fantabulous months!!

In my view the next 2months are going to be very exciting and very fruitfull for all the indian investors at least. I cant find any crisis in the near future.......but then again.... any adversity will not tell u and come.Adversity comes and then u will understand that u r struck in the QUICK-SAND!!!!!!

CONCLUSION:
IMPOSSIBLE is nothing in stock markets!! They are highly UNPREDICTABLE. UNCERTAINITY is the second name of any stock market & UNPREDICTABILITY is the synonym!!!! Everything is VOLATILE here. Nothing is INEVITABLE!!