Anyone can cook !

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 ??

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

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 ?

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

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 !