First contest win as Blogger

Even though I don't blog often was surprised to find myself win  a runner-up in the "Love Marriage ya Arranged Marriage" contest!

"Love Marriage OR Arranged Marriage" was the theme for this pan-India blogging contest conducted by Sony & Powered by Indiblogger.

You can read my blog for the post @ Here 

Happy to get the below runner-up badge !!! 

Love Marriage ya Arranged Marriage!

Its very difficult to say which one is better "Love Marriage Ya Arranged Marriage". Which path to choose? One may say Left is better, One may say right but I prefer Center (hybrid).

I have many married friends, some are happily married, some are burdened by marriage & some are tamed by marriage. (Won't categorize them based on path chosen)

Lets proceed it in same way as Life-cycle of a person.

Pre- Teen:-

Before becoming teenager, many of us have fallen in love with our school teacher or a fellow class mate or one's neighbor? (I am not bringing in age factor of the other person to keep it simple.)

Suppose you are that child.You believe  you are in love and you have watched many Bollywood movies, which shows love is followed by marriage. Now you demand/plan to get married, should one agree? I don't think so. For child's understanding he might be in love (may be actually he is), but none can say with certainty if it's love or "bacch panna"/childishness ? Most of us prefer to see those kids enjoy their childhood (study/play/smile....) instead of facing the hardship of marriage for which they are not yet ready.

At the same time, if the elders also plan to get a child married to another person (Child / Adult / Old person), should one agree?  I expect the same answer here - No. One good example is a popular soap in "Ballika Vadhu". Which sometimes is even a reality.

In short, this is not the right age. If you look at bigger picture, it can cause other problems like exploitation, harassment, domestic violence and other socio-economic factors.

Teen to Adulthood (till one earns and is ready to take care of responsibilities):-
Many of the folks in this age group will claim to love a superstar say "Shah Rukh" or a cricketer say "Virat Kohli" or someone like "Sunny Leone" or "Katrina Kaif".

Some may even leave their home to find "this true love" of theirs, some may even express their feelings before the photographs of "their love" and perceive it to be heard. Some may love a boxer or footballer or swimmer or a dancer from their school or neighborhood. Many will have "Love at first sight". Many people will claim to be in love even though they have never talked directly face-to-face, probably a letter friend or just a chat friend. Most of the times its not love - its attraction or infatuation or lust or perception of one's desire rather than a reality. Many of the folks in the same phase gets $exually involved sometimes resulting in other issues like Teenage pregnancy. Don't think love marriage is desirable (even if both are actually in love) when none of them can take responsibility of even one's own.

Even Arranged marriage won't work well here. For me, this period is not to think about marriage.

Adulthood (ready to take responsibilities):-
Love Marriage:-
If you have reached a stage where you are not dependent on your parents and you are deeply in love "either real or perceived as real", you are free to go ahead legally - Its your life , Its your choice.
No doubt it will have its advantages like both the person will know each other very well in advance,  in this respect it scores above arranged marriage. But at the same time, there are possible issues post-marriage when its not approved by parents.
Firstly, the couple is on their own, as most of the times they are disowned or choose to stay separately from their parents.
Second, if there are any problems between life-partners in future or any other crisis, many of the times parents from either side won't support morally or financially. Also one of the partners might not even have a place to go.
Third, generally I have observed that tendency to compromise is much less but expectation from one's partner is much more.
Fourth, most of the people do point at high divorce rates for love marriage compared to arranged marriage, indicating reduced chances of success in comparison to arranged marriage.

Here the couple knows the path & the partner but they have to proceed at their own risk, with least outside support.

Arranged Marriage:-
In this form of marriage, couples doesn't know much about them and are brainwashed in a sense to find ways to love their partner, which may or may not happen. As they don't know much about each other, there is not much level of comfort between them. But in case of any crisis or issues, one would have many people to rely on or for help to resolve it. Probably, this is the reason its considered safer (but may not be comfortable at the beginning).
If you never fall in love, before or its not feasible for you to marry your love, then this is option you have (unless you plan to be bachelor for life). Family arranged marriage is better than searching for your own life-partner in JeevanSathi.com or some other matrimonial site (though not necessary).

If your partner has died before you, at some point of time you may need a partner, (think old man/woman) , you may not want to wait long for love to happen again. Arrange marriage works better here (options are less).

Here the couple doesn't know partner, but knows path to go forward with lots of help available in need.

Evolution
But I think, nowadays both arranged marriage & love marriage have evolved and have become a bit of hybrid. E.g.

• Love marriage converted to Arrange Marriage - (Best option) - When the couple is able to convince the parent from both the sides.
• Arrange Marriage with consent (from both bride & groom) & courtship period - a chance to know each other before hand. (Better - helps in transition)
• Live-in Relationship - People in love staying together without marriage. ( At-least personally I don't endorse it. I just know that I won't like my kids or my sisters to take this path, so I would do the same. Even though many will say whats wrong in it. I just know that I don't want to be a hypocrite by desiring to be in a live-in-relationship, at the same time, I don't want any of my female family members to take this route. For me exception here is senior citizens). Not to miss the legal & social ramifications of Live-in relationships in India.

I will just conclude, if you get a real love and it works out for you go ahead and try your love (with less/no help around).
If you are not lucky enough to find a real love or its not working out for you, go ahead and try your  luck (with some help around).

Remember all marriages are made in heaven and none of them are perfect. So just chill and be yourself.

This post has been published in response to "Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage " by Indiblogger and Sony Entertainment Television. www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange

Pehel 2012 - An Initiative !!!

Pehel 2012 - An Initiative !!!

Pehel - An ongoing tradition in IIMB PGSEM - An event organised by fresh incoming batch of PGSEM students every year for seniors, and not vice-versa. We first came to know about this tradition from our seniors - Anupama, Gokul, Vijay & Prabir during PGSEM 2012 Orientation. 

Since all of us were nascent in IIMB and upcoming task was to organize an event for seniors, our seniors guided us really well with all logistics and planning. Their guidance helped us streamline the preparation for the event. Love you all seniors, without you we couldn't have done it so entertaining and GRAND SUCCESS (I believe so and most of viewers I believe will agree). ;-)

The event date was decided to be held on 14th July 2012.

The preparation started with formation of various committees for specific tasks. There were committees for fund collection, logistics, design, songs, dance, skit, comparing and other activities. We went ahead with T-shirt route for fund collection, as done in past. Main requirement for finalizing the event date was that it should happen only after the DML (Director's Merit List) was ready. Once DML list was ready and availability of Director & Auditorium was confirmed, we set 14th July 2012 to be the D-day for Pehel 2012. Before the D-day, many events related the organizing had taken place like T-shirt distribution, practice for various acts, teasers and invitations, etc. Don't want to bore you all with those details...Lets move to the D-Day directly.

Finally the D-day was there, most of us did final preparations for performing, of course, after the classes. Once Auditorium was available A/V and other logistics were checked, so as to make sure everything was in place. Guests started trickling in & the event started.

Event kick started @ 6 pm, with a welcome to guests. Formal event started with speech by our director Prof. Chandra's,  our chairperson Prof. Ramesh Kumar followed by Prof. Agarwal. After that, DML awardees were accoladed by the director. We had a Hi-Tea break between formal and informal events, thanks to the PGSEM office for that.

The informal event kick started by an amazing performance by Anu's kids (Aditi & Pranav) - Simply Priceless during the duet song by Chandni & Abhesh - "Laddki Kyu Najane Kyu, Ladko se nahin hoti".

Pranav & Aditi - Rockstars in Action

Dance - I never thought we could have pulled it off so well. Audience were spell bound with it. It had many tracks "Terre Bina Bhi Kya Jina", "Humara Bajaj", "Chalo Ishq Ladayee", "Kolaveri Di" & "Rum Rum Whishky". It spell-bound the audience both with comedy & simply splendid performance. Waiting for someone to share video. Video is worth more than any words.

Melodious solo singing by Chandni touched everyone's heart.

Skit - every time we rehearsed our dialogues were different. Specially just a day before, on 13th July night, we started seeing changes in dialogue for Dr. Silent Singh, Aamir Khan, Baba Ramdev, Media representative. So the Skit's troupe were on the stage with just one practice of the final dialogues. It went well, hope it succeeded in entertaining as well as in provoking some thoughts w.r.t. the issue of corruption. 

Skit Intro - "Gaddhe Mein Bharat"

Skit Climax - "Gaddhe Mein Bharat"

Iqbal as Dr. Silent Singh

Audience were engaged through out the show thanks to splendid MCing by Pehel 2012 Masters-of-Ceremony - Anshuman & Swati. 

Group song was a perfect ending for one of the finest evening @ IIM-B, with our friends & family in IIM-B. Followed by delicious dinner in MDC, thanks to PGSEM office.

Last Act of the Evening - Group Song

Thanks to All for Making this event a GRAND SUCCESS !!!

Khul-ja-Sim-Sim !!!

IIM-B Here We Come !!!

Orientation Day 1 :-
I woke up @ 5 am and was ready to reach the IIM-B as a student. Feeling was quite different as never before with 100 of questions jumping inside my top floor- What to expect? Who all will be my batch mates? How will be the Profs., seniors ? Will I be able to balance my personal & study life? How I need to plan my travel to-and-fro between home & IIMB campus ... My thoughts were quite turbulent until I reached the gates of THE IIM-B. Once we (Me & Mayank) were inside the gates, it was an altogether different world. Suddenly we stopped hearing all sorts of traffic noise and one could hear the nature and feel the calm environment surrounding us. We stepped out of car, confused were to go, suddenly saw a smiling face of one of our seniors, who was coming towards us. (Later came to know his name - Vijay). Vijay guided us to MDC for breakfast, which was followed up by checking in the hostel. As soon as I entered the room , I felt as if I have entered the hostel life again.

We had a few inspirational talks by the likes of Mr. Anjan Lahiri (president of I.T. services, MindTree), Mr. Rajesh Pandit and Prof. N. M. Agarwal. Also we had one of the quite different views by Mr. Mansoor Khan, Entrepreneur and Film director of Kayamat Se Kayamat Tak, Jo Jeeta Wahin Sikandar, Akele Hum Akele Tum, who shared his views w.r.t. to Oil Peak and 3rd Curve.

And yes, we had interactions with our seniors (Few of the names I remember - Anu, Prabir, Maitreya, Harsha, Gokul, Radha, Vijay, and others...sorry in case I missed you). Seems like I had abundant names to remember and I failed to recall all - Short Term Memory Loss . We were given some good gyaans and later were greeted with 3 books - Accounting, Strategic Management & Microeconomics. Lot of experiences were shared by senior PGSEMers, they also arranged for games like Dump Charades, 1 minute non-sense talk, Skit, etc. And yes, not to miss late night group assignments being given after midnight to be submitted before 8 am next morning. Which all together was a fun. And every tasks was going to be counted for the HOUSE CUP and the group name for us was "KLONAM". At midnight, while we were working on our assignments and having coffee, I got the unique chance which not many of new joinees get - chance to shot your seniors - which I myself jumped in to shot all of them at once. Below is the shot

And yes, even though the assignment was for us and it was late, they were sharing their experiences even late night, which really shows their passion to help us. (Had I been in there place probably I would have ran to sleep). This is the time I realized that if we are working on assignments late at night, they are also not sleeping early either and really have put a lot of effort for us in there busy schedule. Love you all seniors ...

Orientation Day 2 :-
Wow !!! we were awake till 3 am and then finally decided to go for sleep. And yes just to add I got a great group too - Kumar Guhan, Latish, Madhu & Madhur - "METAMINDS". All of them are really sweet, I pulled Guhan's legs that he need to wakeup early and review too, but he was really cool as always. I woke at 6 am and was ready for the Day 2. We got chance to attend "Drishtikon 2012 : CSITM Annual conference". Many papers were presented also we got some good insights from Rajesh and Prof. Sourav Mukherji. I have always noticed Prof. N. M. Agarwal to be very very humble, e.g. he will always ask others to also give momento to distinguished guests as well as ask PGSEMer 2012 to light lamps.

We also were lucky to hear famous people from different facets of life (Mr. Vir Kashyap from http://babajob.com/, Ms. Gunjan Krishna  an IAS officer) - I was literally spell bound by the amount work being done by her as well as  knowledge she had, Mr Singh from DataWind - Aakash Tablets, Mr. Anand Sudarshan from Manipal Educations). We got some enlightened by Mr. Bhavish Sood from Gartner. I really apologise not to remember all the names properly, but can't help as we (I believe most of us) were busy trying to keep remembering names of our batch mates. All new faces and names - and another problem of mapping correct name & face... He He...

Battle for House Cup started again in the evening, till now we were the top group - KLONAM. All the four houses competed in various games like Cricket, Table Tennis, Basket Ball and Badminton followed by Treasure Hunt. Doing a treasure hunt in such a big campus at night when most of us are confused with all the paths with every surroundings which look similar was definitely not a cake walk. But surprise was still awaiting us. Another set of assignment - this time a case study that too close to 20 pages of case. We all (MetaMinds) were mentally prepared to be awake whole night again. We completed the assignment and went for our rooms.

Orientation Day 3 :-
Thanks to Madhur who woke me up on time, otherwise I would have definitely missed the case study class by Prof. B. Mahadevan. To my surprise, we were greeted by our seniors with a surprise quiz followed by Case study Introduction. We had a really interesting and very interactive session with Prof. Mahadevan. Though while being in class it looked normal but when I look back now, I can really feel the difference all the learning I still remember and also the content covered in that small duration was huge. After the session was over, we were given a bonded booklet for strategic management. Seems like next 2.5 years is going to be very exciting and very very busy. And as usual we had our seniors and they as usual had some more info for us along with academic information - we need to treat them by organizing an event called "Pehel". We were ready to leave the college after lunch. We also had elections and we choose a Class Representative too.

When I look back I felt as if I have been there in campus for a month or two. I am in totally Awe after getting just a glimpse of 2.5 days, just wondering what we will be 3 years later once molded by this fine institution. And yes, I don't regret trying to get into PGSEM year after year, from 2008 till now, finally I have reached the place I wanted to be in. The doors of learning have opened for Me !!! Khul - ja - Sim - Sim !!! Its up to us how much wealth of knowledge we can carry back and apply !!!

Ice Breaker - Crystal-Talk – Toastmasters

I joined one of the Motorola's ToastMaster club 2-3 weeks ago. I was invited there by my colleague Santosh as a guest. I was really impressed by the way sessions were conducted and thought to join it and be a part of it. So I joined it and gave my first ice-breaker speech in the Toast Master. Sharing the speech video for all of you.

Club Cabana @ Moto

Most of you will easily guess with the name, whats it all about? Yes, you are right, Its a Team Outing by Motorola, My New Company "Officially". We came to know about this in our weekly Thursday team meeting with our manager. He said it will will be Ramee Guestline Hotels & Resorts and that too on Sunday. To be very true, it was a mixed feeling why a team outing on weekend at the same time, at least we are going for an outing. We came to know about the other option was Club Cabana and we all were like, damn club cabana will be 100 times better than Ramee Guestline. I had already visited Ramee Guest-line and haven't visited Club Cabana before, so one more reason for me to crib more about Ramee and more praise for Club Cabana was more because of curiosity to see a new one rather than go to some place where I have already visited. Whole of our team seems to be of the same opinion favoring Club Cabana over Ramee. And full credit for Satish and KV for somehow being able to change it from Ramee (Sunday) to Club Cabana (Friday).... Kudos to them :)

So the outing was finally planned for 26th March' 10 for Cabana with reaching time to office set as 7 am. The day before the trip, i.e. on 25th, I slept late at 2 am but with happy mood to wakeup early and happy about getting the weekend end earlier than expected. I am too much used to wake up at 8am and having already missed a flight once because of not being able to get up on time.... I took extra precautions and had set 3 alarm time :- 5 am , 5:25 am, 5:45am and had asked one of my friends to also call.... After these measures, I was sure that all is safe and planned for the day coming forward and slept peacefully....

7:10 am (26th March) -- chrrr chrrr felt the vibration of my phone and my typical RIM ringtone...It was Riddi-mon calling me....Damn and I suddenly realized I should have been there in Moto's campus by now.....I just took the call and said I will be there in 15 mins....and a typical bachelors sprint started....Brushed quickly while bucket of water was getting filled with cold water... as soon as cleansing of teeth were done, shaved myself in most quick and rash way one could do... just poured the whole bucket of ice cold water at once over me (I always use hot water for bath) ...and yes lighted the lamp for the holy god and started chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and started dressing up at the same time....believing god will understand ;)... somehow managed to reach there by 7:35 am and yes my bus was still there....and I felt like damn I could have shaved myself more cleanly :( ...seemed like few people were still on the way :)... Thanks to Riddimon had he not called me at 7 I would have woked up at 7:30 when Satish would have called me ...ha ha ... most of our team members where there except Gopi, Anitha & Subhash... We boarded the bus and reach C@b@n@ Club at nearly 8:30...

Club Cabana looked a decent resort from the entrance...We had breakfast and once it was done, people started looking for activities and games to play. We rushed to bowling just to find that it was yet to open and waited for some time and then some confusion if its part of package or not... Getting bored with all the confusions surrounding it, four out of the six sharabis' of our team went for the bar hunt (the place where we can find the cigarette) and then got a pack of regular WILLS at double the cost of MRP. :( But yes, they were happy to at-least get it. After the session of these four were over, we went back to bowling and seemed like because of the confusion all of the people had left the place and we cam to know it was company sponsored. We had good play... I was leading till last round until I scored nil in the last round and Riddi-mon stole the lead from me and gujju bhai, popularly known as "chota-Arc***" a name invented in this trip for him.

After bowling, before the water play all the six Sharabis' out of 11, actualy I should say 7 sarabis' but we lost KK in our pre-water play venture, somehow. We had drink and then the water play started. I loved it, and yes Tushar "The Nautanki of our Team" was somehow restricting his art after his first jump into the water ... He came through the slider and was inside the pool for 10 seconds until I pulled him out from inside... Ha ha and the funniest part was that he didn't get into the water after that without a tube...he he ...And yes ofcourse this was the best time to hit my manager with tubes and I did get the company of our great iDENGALA members who are still in moto... Then a kind of routine things like lunch and roaming here and there ... I mean nothing worth to mention about until we boarded the bus...

I asked everyone to move to the last row of the bus and yes the bachelor sub-gang of our team was in the last row of the bus... (counting Ravindra as pseudo-bachelor - "the bond" popularly known as "chota-Che***")... Ahead of us there were approximately 10 rows of dead-tired crowd left with no fun with only motive to reach back home.... But this was the right time for the Nautanki - Tushar to start - as he was out of water ;) Not scared of anyone now , he he ... I suggested to just shout "Messssssssaaaaagiiiiinnnnnggggggggggg ................................. Messssssssaaaaaaagggggggiiiinnnnnnnnggggg" in between to wake-up the crowd..... But nautanki came up with the solid idea of singing songs....we all agreed... I mean the last row of alive people in the bus full of either dead-tired people or those for whom bus ride can't be fun :( .... So we started singing and yes we hardly knew the complete lyrics of the songs we sang.... It was just first one or two lines....And yes of course we had a theme songs -

Pyaar hamein kis mod pe le aaya,

Ki dil kare haye, hayeeeeeeeeee....

koi to bataye, kya hoga....

More than the songs it was the emotions and the feel of fun with which we were singing was making us delighted and elated... :) I loved one more song which was a bit true with the situations there -

"Thande Thande Paani se Nahaana Chahiye (2),

Gana aayae ya naa ayeee gana chahiye "

Well I know I couldn't explain the return bus ride well, but it was the most funny and hilarious thing we had in the whole day...

It make me reach to the conclusion that its not about where we go for fun & Masti,

Its all about with whom we go and how much we are ready to utilize each and every moment for the fun hidden inside us rather than feel shy and restrict us.....

With all credits to management of Moto for providing us with this offsite team meet which was duely required.

And yes thanks to the all the mates for all the fun....I loved this trip....And yes Mr. Nautanki - your emotions when u sing shows that its the right time for u to get married and settle down ;)

Avatar

Avatar

Finally,

we had a first team movie outing.... everything was good except of the fact it was a self sponsored one. Well, one more thing is there :- The pleasure of successful completion of idea proposed me and its execution. The idea for a team outing for a movie suddenly clicked to me when I was coming back from the tea along with Riddhish. So I asked our boss, Satish, we call him "Sarkar" also. To my surprise, he agreed for it and that too on a working day. So we got the green signal.

Recently, all of us in Motorola moved to Google Apps from Outlook, which had one good feature of conducting polls. And we made a good use of it. To our surprise, out of 14 member team 12 agreed to go f

or this. This was definately more than what I expected. The factors which influnced 85% + turnout in the team were

1. It was on a Working Day
2. One who doesn't go for movie can't take it off and will have to work in office
3. It was in English (As our team is a mix of people with different native tongues any other language will have resulted in more rejections for sure)
4. Hype of Avatar and its Graphics.
5. 3D. (Not many of us has watched a 3-D movie)
6. Lastly, Holiday mood ..... ;)

Based on everyone's convenience as well as tickets availability, we finalized the day of Thursday(24th December). The Avatar day arrived and we started assembling and most of us reached there using bikes through route avoiding the Metro-construction route, which was the shortest one. We all reached Fame Cinemas on time and were ready to Avatarised in 3D way.

Movie Review:-

1. Awesome Graphics
2. Nice 3D experience
3. Story was okie-dokie.
4. 2nd half is better than 1st half.
5. Movie is definitely over-hyped.

Fame Cinemas' Review:-

1. Seats were cozy & spacious.
2. Nice Environment.
3. Food inside is very costly. (Which is expected in Multiplexes in cities :(

Somehow, I kept thinking about Avatar. It may be because of many reasons. May be because as I am Hindu and we have always been saved by our deities who reincarnates themselves in form of Avatars. Or may be because my first disposition for patent was Avatar Transformation System, which got rejected. :( Or was it because of the thoughts which kept coming to my mind, like what we have done to the nature of our planet. Ah Ah... somehow I felt the movie was over hyped, but deep inside there was some link with the word Avatar or some of the values projected through the movie "Avatar". Even, I thought about if the 10th Avatar of Vishnu, as predicted by Bhavisya Purana will actually come? If he comes will he be in some horse with wings or this white or it is some aircraft as most of them are white also they are regarded as war-horse.

Origin of the word "Avatar" is from Sanskrit.

1. A manifestation of a deity in Hinduism.
2. A new personification of a familiar idea
3. An icon or animation to represent a participant used in Internet chat and games

Moto Cliq

Moto Cliq

Finally, the much awaited first Android Phone from Motorola has been officially introduced. Though I had a chance of looking it before also as one of the developers.

But had to hold any of the comments till the official release.

I wont say much, just that this is an awesome phone if you are addicted to social sites/blogging, etc.

Unfortunately, its not introduced in India yet. But once it comes people will

definately like it as its feature rich and nice integration of all sites, especially the Blur home screen.

So if you are addicted to social sites and are in US and are looking for a good new feature rich smart phone, don't miss to checkout http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-CLIQ-US-EN

http://www.t-mobile.com/promotions/GenericRegular.aspx?PAsset=Pro_Pro_MotoCliqLaunch&WT.mc_id=637m3

Joke of the Day !!!!!

Joke of the Day !!!!!

Don't Trust Anybody !!!

A burglar decided to rob the safe in a store.

On the safe door he was very pleased to find a note reading: "Please don't use dynamite. The safe is not locked. Just turn the knob."

He did so. Instantly a heavy sandbag fell on him, the entire premises were floodlighted, and alarms started clanging.

As the police carried him out on a stretcher, he was heard moaning: "My confidence in human nature has been rudely shaken."

Trying to Love Music !!!!

Trying to Love Music !!!!

Last week, when I was thinking about the things to do, which I always delay for later because of work or other committment, I was able to jort down a list of items. One of the item in the list was Music. I know no-way I can sing well... so was thinking about some musical instruments, and today I took some steps to go ahead with the plan.

Well, today when I woke up with alarm at 6 am only to find that I was suppose to wake up at 5 am and get ready to go to Kanteerva stadium. Ahhh... I missed again the bus because of my sleep.... I remember the way I missed the flight for kol in a similar way 3 years back. Actually, today there was a corporate race sponsored by Nike and I was supposed to participate from Sasken. The team size from each company needed to be 50+ and must have included a minimum of 6 female participant. But as I woke up at 6 am, it was already to late for me to even try to reach there. So to add to that action items my Sleep is one more thing that I need to control. :(

Coming back to music, I got enrolled finally for a Music Instrument Classes. The first instrument which I enrolled for was guitar. So now I had to buy a guitar. I contacted Ranjit & Tushar, as they have already bought one so will definately have a better idea in this respect. So we planned to go together in the evening after their guitar classes get over. So I reached on time at the Indiranagar center. There I found Ranjit & Tushar standing up just to find there bikes towed away by the traffic police. So we went to the traffic police station acting as student and gave a fine of Rs 200 per bike...they were demanding Rs 300 initially (Rs 100 fine + Rs 200 as towing charge). Then me and Ranjit left for chickpet. Damn chickpet area was too crowded similar to Bara Bazaar (kolkata). We finally reached to place to find that the shop is closed. But we saw another shop near by and bought a guitar from there. Hopefully now I can start playing something on guitar soon. First target is just to play Sa- Re- Ga- Ma ;)

Its time to close the waiting List !!!!!!!!!!!!

Its time to close the waiting List !!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, seems like now I need to take a stand on myself and start closing the never ending waiting list of the items which I keep planning every month once or twice, but never even initiates, forget the conclusion. But after the PGSEM's disappointing results I'm not going to let the wait continue on other things which I just plan and never do.... Yeah these were the thoughts running thru my mind on last Friday,....after burning my ass-off in the same chair sitting in front of the PC and working like a typical s/w professional....

I'm a Libran...And yes....I'm Lazy by nature and find hard to reach some decisions pertaining to me fast....The above things only prove this :(

I remember a few Fwded mails containing the characteristics of a person based on the zodiac signs.... And some of my characteristic definately matches with the typical zodiac signs of mine....The item which is always on a planing list but never executed were

1> Working out in Gym:-

Ah !!!!!!!!! God knows from when I am planning to do this ...probably from the 3rd year of engineering .....So its nearly 6 years of planning and execution of just a month or two when I was in Sasken, until I moved to the client side, Motorola. Motorola has a better gym than sasken but still I just go there once in a while to measure my weight with Sandeep, my closest work mate... Seems this item will stay as pending and will be probably the last one I will close.

2> Learn Dancing:-

Well, this desire comes up only when I see someone dancing too well and feeling what the fuck I am doing just standing and watching !!!!!!!! Not sure if its the right age to start this ...but its a hidden desire inside ...probably one day I will do ...Atleast before going to the GYM ;)

3> Learn Driving:-

Not sure, what blocked me from doing this. Probably bcoz of my lazy nature ....But yes, this is one of the workitem I am planning as of now to execute soon ... Hope its not the same old planning way ;)

4> Music:-

Well, my voice was never pleasant enuf to be that one of a singer...so its just the ears who have been doing his work... But this aspiration added a new dimension of playing instruments after I watched "Rock On !!!" ...Obviously, Guitar is on the List first of All the instruments .... I have enquired also, and there is a good teacher nearby my flat where I can enrol... next Saturday will definitely execute :)

5> Swimming:-

Oh no !!! One more ... so many items ...pending list is big ...when will I execute all of them :(

6> Come Out of Past:-

Though I might act as I am out of my past, but its never the case it seems....deep inside there is something which sometimes I regret but can never make out what went wrong ....Probably I never understood the emotions of the loved ones...and never knew when I hurt themmm....But its time to be just friends and be back to normal !!!! :x

Lets see when I execute them ....But other than work these are the items which i need to do ....I don't want to be just an IT professional.... Enuf of just work....Life has something more to do....... Its time for a new Phase of Life !!! And better one for sure !!!!!!!!!

Its time to close the waiting List !!!!!!!!!!!!

Waiting to be an MBA continues....

PGSEM - The Wait Continues

Its has been a 3 longs years since I am trying to get into the elite IIMs, but seems like my wait is going to continue for another year. :(



This year I just gave CAT and PGSEM. And fortunately got an interview call for PGSEM on March 9, 2009. On March 9, I got a mail from PGSEM admissions that I have been shortlisted and should be available for an alumni interview, to be held at the IIMB campus premises during 15th March, 2009. I was pleased to read these mails and there started all the anxieties for the alumni interview. I went for the alumni interview to IIM-B, my first visit to IIM-B, praying to the Lord that it should give me with the opportunity to be a regular visitor here as a student. IIMB's campus is sorrounded by trees and once u enter u will feel like that u are not in bangalore, the atmosphere is so quite and silent, a perfect one to study without any outside interference. My Alumni interview was about to begin as we were waiting for the Alumni's to arrive. Then suddenly someone asked for my name and said me to come along with him in the interview room. There were two panelists, one was from Wipro (13 years + exp) and another one was from Tech Mahindra. Both were IIM-B PGSEM passouts. Alumni interview was very interactive and good one and I was preety sure that they were happy with the interaction we had.

On March 24, I got a mail regarding my faculty interview schedule on Friday, April 3, 2009. So I reached there on the designated day. After doing the pre-interview formalities I was called for the interview. Again two faculty members were there. They asked a range of questions like
-- Asked about my company, Are you happy with it? Will you move to other company given an option? ....
-- About Singur Issue and what solutions I can give...what should I have done being in CMs chair at that time?
-- About my marriage plans in case I join course? and how do i plan to cope up with it.
-- And lot more.

The interview lasted for 30 mins. One of the faculty seemed happy in his expression after my interview and other one was okie-dokie. After the interview I tried to catch some present IIMB PGSEM students and got some more information.

But it seems that I was not good enough, I got a mail saying "I write to inform you that you have been waitlisted for IIM Bangalore’s Post Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management, for the session commencing in June 2009. Your position on the waitlist is currently at No. 7. In the event that we can admit you into the PGSEM program, we will get in touch with you and convey our offer." on April 9. I was greatly disappointed after that. But got info from PGSEM groups that last year upto 10 waiting List were cleared... Now the hope was alive....

But Hope was for a short duration... I got a mail on saying May 5 saying "We regret to inform you that we could not accommodate you for PGSEM 2009 batch since we have limited seats and no cancellations. " Seemed like none cancelled. :(
Later from groups I got info that like no waiting list candidates were offered seats...few defered candidates prefered to join this year probably 4-5 in number....

The crux of the story is my waiting List continues ......:(

Bachelor Beer Party

Bachelor's Beer Party

Well, some events execute well and is more memorable if unplanned & happen with momentum. Yesterday was one of such events a gathering of 3 team mates just after the work. None of us would have thought that we would be landing up together at a common place holding a can of beer.

Yesterday was the same usual day arrived at 9 am (my usual time is close to 10 am)and leaving office at 10pm as I had a call. While leaving I thought to curse Chandan who had his reviewed planned today early morning (Two continous day to come to Office early ...common guys we need some extra sleep.....) ...So we thought to leave together and I will drop him near my home to take auto ....then the plan changed to having dinner together ... then to having beer together ( cheeerrrrrssssssss !!!!!!!!!!!)... While having beer we just thought to call up the 3rd face of our bachelor Trimurti of our team - Ridhish... We called him up and as usual we played the prank about us drinking at office and Ridhish as usual because of his innocence believed us....This poor chap is too innocent now ...I should say "Devil in the making" instead ;) . After knowing that we are at home and my home is near by...He dropped in too with a pre-condition that we get a beer for him before the bar closes (It was 10:30 pm and generally bar closes at 11pm in Bangalore.......ohhhhh yuk.......11pm all bars close :( Bangalore still sucks in this regard)...we got a beer for him & three of us landed up in my place with Beer...





Now everyone can imagine the topic / discussion happening when 3 bachelor team mates meet with a jar of beer ---huh !!! We did discussed chicks in our company and how we are sufferring at the hands of our Mgr, and whole lot of shit which we never thought would discuss.....Ahh !!!!!!!! But that was a good time felt like I am back to my Hostel days ....:)

Cost Cutting...

Cost Cutting

Seems like party for the IT software companies are over now.They won't be getting the same kind of growth of 40-60% as they were getting sometime back. Different companies are adopting different strategy to cope up with this situation. Some companies are on hiring freeze mode, some are on firing mode, some are in cost cutting while some are in salary cut mode. Or to say in simple terms most of them seems to be planning for short term or are just in survival mode. But is industry really low? Well, if you ask me, answer is both yes and no. Let us look to some specific industries, say Telecom. The sales of mid- & low-tier phones may be down as compared to last year, but it is being projected that smart phones will show a huge growth, projected around +50%. Now, smart phones category is a totally new segment and with the price of smart phones being on the higher end means that it will bring more revenue. So even if the number of units sold will be less, the revenue will be more. Same for auto-industry, though sales of more generic petro-automobiles are on downtrend, but consumers are now looking more inclined towards automobile which runs on Bio-diesel / Electricity / LPG... So for me no industry is down we just need to look for opportunities.

Whatever I might say or think but I fall on the side of being affected by one of the survival modes adapted by my company. AHhhhh ......no.....but yeah....there has been a salary cut of 10% through out my organisation .....& if you are in bench your cut will be 40%.........Thank God I didn't take any loans so don't have to pay any EMI's....But when I think of some person who might have taken a loan and has some EMI's to pay ...how will they cope up with it.....

With bloodbath all in the market...it seems right time to upgrade my skill - may be for an MBA....

Lets see ...Hope for the best

Nandi Hills Trip @ 28th September

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Rang my phone... Abhishek on call ... time 3 am on 28th Septe

mber ... Abhishek says, "Aeee ekhone uthi ni .....tara tari kor ekhon teen ta hoye che.... Borete hobe Nandi Hills jonene ...Na hole Sunrise miss hoy jabe" (Wake up its 3 am already, hurry up we need to leave soon for Nandi Hills otherwise we will miss the sunrise).....

Ahhhhhhhhh....... Wished sunrise used to be at 10 so that I could have slept peacefully till at least 7 am...But Brahma had make the world like this... :(

After Abhishek's call, I really felt a sense of urgency to get ready and leave for nandi Hills fast ....And I was preety much upto the mark to leave by 3:25... 

Naww.... I messaged all the people that I am leaving and be ready....

Picked up Nitu, went to Sandy's Place , got along with him reached Domlur where Abhishek was waiting for us. Now we were 3 bikers.... Then our next destination was National Games Village to pick up two more persons, Pragya and Ankita. 

Picked them up then moved to Paramount (Koromangla) to get Alongwith Shradda and Rachna. Also, Nitu's friend - Sourabh and Navin - who were also coming alongwith us. So everything seemed to be going right on time.

Now we all 10 people - 5 bikes - started our journey at nearly 4 am.... Then I recalled Abhishek's bike was on reserve and we tried few 24-hours petrol pump until we found one on hyderabad highway.... It was preety chill at that time....my fingers were nearly freezed... But It was great to ride on the Hyderabad Highway, the road was quite smooth other than one or two unexpected bumpers.  

We reached the ticket counter at 5:45 am, and the rush at the ticket counter was way more than I have seen in any of my previous two visits here. The queue was long, but we got some girls in our gang to collect it for us and we were able to reach peak by 6:30 am. Hadn't we got tickets by some other means we wouldn't have reached the peak before 6:45. Everyone seemed to be in fine fettle.

The scenic beauty from the top was great. We went to various places of the peak including the suicide point, Sweet Water lake, etc.We had a lot of fun there and we were ready to leave. Every thing seemed to be going great as planned, none of us had any intitution of the adventure waiting for all of us. 

After having a good time there, we were ready to leave the hills and move towards the city. And during I ride back we got all short of probable thing which could happend to a bike.

As we were going down, Navin's Bike was out of fuel, incident no. 1 :( Thank God we had one shop nearby with petrol. And we could refill it. everything seemed to be going smooth and then Sourabh's bike got punctured. We searched for the puncture shop nearby and then finally ourselves got the rear tyre removed and send sourabh and Navin to puncture shop. Once they were back from puncture shop, we started again. In hyderabad highway, then we had 3 bikers caught by police for general checks and overspeed. two of them were fine with all documents so they got freed easily. However, Navin didn't have all the documents and he finally bribed them with Rs 350 to get free.;). Now after another 10 kms Navin's fuel was again empty. He got it refilled from some petrol pump within a radius of 1km. After all these incidents we had our group in 4 different places. I was with Navin as he had no petrol. Abhishek went through some different route. Saurabh was at different place. And Sandeep too at a different location. Thankfully Sandy completed his Doctors work while those police and fuel refil activity of Navin was taking place. Finally we all assembled at Brigade road and we were back to the full strength together. By this time everyone seemed tired and Hungry. So we planned to go to Prayag, koromangla for lunch. And adding to the adventure it was fully crowded. We got a table, but that was outside and then there was a scorching sun above our head. Somehow we had some thing to eat there and then we left for home. Most of the people in trip might have just went home and slept coz it was really tiring and adventourous journey.

27th September ....Its my Birthday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, thankfully this birthday didn't turn out the way Last two birthday's i had in Bangalore. Few of my friends surprised by being there at 12' o clock.....And then the birthday celebrations.....

With my face also having the taste of Cake.....It was yummy .........

Not much different than what one can expect ...lot of calls & calls through out the day with the wishes....

Had lunch with my friends in Bangalore....

Then we made  plans for Nandi Hills the next morning which really turned out to be an unexpected adventorous trip ... 

Will tell u about the trip in the next post ....

Thanks all for the wishes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Magic Of Dabbawalas Unfolded by Dr. Pawan Agarwal on 25th Sep 2008

On 25th Sep 2008, Motorola India Planned a session by Dr. Pawan Agarwal, who shared his insight on Dabbawalas of Mumbai. Lot of Town halls have taken place in our work place, but I never saw the number of people attend it in that large number as it was that day. Only townhalls of a CEO or CTO of our company can match that gathering. The session was very informative and was well communicated by DR. Agarwal.

dabbawallah is a person in the Indian city of Mumbai who is employed in a unique service industry whose primary business is collecting the freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers (mostly in the suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning back the empty boxes by using various modes of transport. Most of the Dabbawallah's are illiterate, but still the perfection with which they do their work with nearly zero error without using any of the technology is simply awesome. They even got the Six- sigma certification without even applying.... That's really cool.

Examples of few incidents revolving them during the session was humorous and realistic at the same time it showed that sincerity, honesty and simplicity with which dabbawallah's do their work. Simply Hats Off to them..... :)