So not sure whom I am writing this blog for.. maybe nobody will ever follow. Still thought to roll out my thoughts again on this blog. Today, I have officially resigned from Cognizant and this probably starts my new journey. Cognizant tenure gave me lot of things but to be candid my life was in turmoil during this more than 3 year period. This is probably the first step I have taken to rectify bits and bytes of my life. Long way to go, many things to be corrected and sorted but I can see that I will reach there soon. Slowly and steadily things will proceed.. onward to my new journey. Will update more soon. This blog needs to be woken up!
Why is that people only remember someone who becomes successful? There are tons who purposely don't become successful. (because of N number of reasons)
Success is an outcome of effort, right move, right time, luck etc.. but above all - A 'want', which drives one to be successful. This 'want' defies the meaning of being successful.
If I retrospect, I see tons of people in my life who were truly brilliant but they just didn't had that similar 'want' and that surely doesn't make them any less credible. Its interesting -> People follow/respect/remember/talk about only those few people who wanted to be successful or I should say only those few who had a yearn for being successful but people never realize that there are tons around who have the same capabilities albeit with different yearns or frankly with a different meaning of 'being successful'. Interesting!!!
Few days ago, I read an article on Techcrunch regarding plan of Foxconn to replace human manufactures with 1 million robots. A complete article is at: http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/01/foxconn-planning-to-hire-1-million-robots/. This led me to think on an interesting debate:
- Whether this move is proper and if yes then this would probably be detrimental for over 400,000 Taiwan laborers. - And if this move is not proper then isn't technological growth getting curbed.
Which side would you take and why? On one side we are keeping foot on the income of 400,000 Taiwan laborers and on the other hand we are curbing growth which on the flip side may be truly beneficial for the company. Companies can't stop innovating, they just cant stop using cutting edge techniques in this competitive world. Its business at the end of the day... right? But is business growth good on the expense of laying off workers? Isn't companies should have human touch but then whats more important growth or human touch in a firm? Theres a famous quote which I remembered while reading this article "Technological innovation produces both employment and unemployment :)".
Interestingly, we will see more of this coming in near future. Everything is getting robotized. I always think that one can never stop technological growth though it can just be slowed. At the end, I truly think its education which can increase the merit of the person. Education would be the savior in coming times. Laborers are getting affected and even if ball goes towards the laborers, it will be just a temporary relief. Technology can never be gripped for long... I am personally not sure which side is better but I can see the wave coming which maybe dire for laborers in near future...We truly need education quicker than factories can retrofit with labour saving technologies and thats unlikely.
Its hard to say what will succeed: Education or Faster innovation?
Winner in MIT Ideas Jury Award and MIT Global Community Choice Award
We with MIT President, Susan Hockfield. (Getting congratulated after getting awards at MIT Ideas competition).
Today is a special day for us :).
My team has won 2 big awards in MIT Ideas competition:
- Winner in MIT Ideas judges award - Awarded 5000$ for this. - Winner in MIT Global Choice Community award - We got maximum votes in the competition. Awarded 5000$ for this one too.
We pitched our project EyeCatra - A low cost snap-on for mobiles which is a self diagnostic for detecting cataract. Its accurate, portable and targeted to help the rural community.
We also got congratulations from MIT President, Susan Hockfield for the awards.
Jack Welch (X-chairman and ceo of GE) came to MIT campus on April 26th; Sharing some quotes from him :)
[1] Always keep your options open; Jack was interviewing with other companies even after he got promoted to vice chairman of GE.
[2] The concept of "great leaders are lonely" is not true; Be friends with your employees; When you are the big boss, everyone sucks up to you; Jack: "all of the sudden, my jokes became funny"..people started liking me"...media thought if I have a hand on something..it gotta be big..."
[3] Managers needs to communicate with employees on how exactly "change" will benefit them: Quote - "for example more pay or more growth...u cant give everything.. but make sure u be transparent and give something.. we work to get benefitted somehow... remember this".
[4] Student: "when do we look for money and when do we look job for a purpose..in general which is more important?" Jack: "Both are important; and if you want money with no purpose, go into Wall St."
[5] Quote - "Dont ever drift with the crowd; always try to stand out; you dont spend money in the top school to comprise... make a difference"
[6] Admitting your mistake is hard, but its very important for a leader to do so; Jack gives the example how a MLB first base umpire made a bad call and cost Galarraga a Perfect Game..i dont know about this......
[7] Jack was blunt and said - "Lay offs has to be done of inefficient people.. We are not like GM, government motors :) hehe"
Largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. (Killing 11 people and releasing 4.9 million barrels of crude oil ) Disappointed with the outcome of the quick response actions taken in the days following the disaster, the U.S. Federal Government and BP tapped into open innovation.
What went wrong with BP oil spill open innovation initiative?
Reason 1: Idea review and selection is as important as idea gathering.
With 20000 ideas in the basket, the amount of time required to review the ideas would definitely not be acceptable.
Reason 2: Alignment issues between the nature of the problem and solvers’ profiles.
Having analyzed more ways of reaching the right external skill-sets, this open innovation program would have been more successful.
Reason 3: The costs associated with failure are too high.
First attempts to solve the oil spill were not successful; BP started receiving criticisms. In such situations, one can imagine how severe the costs of dealing with another failed solution would be. This means that BP needed “The Best Solution” instead of having “Many bad, ok or good solutions”.
MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_$100K_Entrepreneurship_Competition) Link - http://www.mit100k.org/
I got an entry for next round in premiere MIT100k$ competition. My business plan is eyenetra.com My team got selected out of 300 entries for the next round. Lets hope for the best to come ahead.
Rest my initial proposal for MIT Ideas competition: http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/ is also selected. We have to give final business proposal on April 5th. Lets see how it comes up in next rounds.
Rest its all going very hectic for this week..assignments..deadlines..classes.and more over for me lots of competitions... trying to finish up everything before I go to California on 19th for a week.
Cataracts are the leading cause of avoidable blindness worldwide. India with 32% of cataract blindness cases and Sub-Saharan Africa with 20% account for the majority of cataract cases in the World. With only one ophthalmologist per million people in Africa and a slightly better ratio of one in 100,000 for India, majority of Cataracts go undetected leading to avoidable blindness. Aulus Mobile is a patented revolutionary concept that serves as a portable kit to detect and elaborate on eye cataracts. It is a simple clip-on device that can be mounted on a mobile phone and uses a mobile app to detail out the cataract results of the subject’s eye. With the cost of just $4.99 as compared to the average cost of $1500 for the existing cataract detection equipments, this product will not only make cataract detection affordable for the masses but also avoids the need for doctors to detect cataract, thereby enabling treatment and prevention of cataract blindness, which accounts to roughly 50% of the world’s total blindness cases. In remote areas of developing nations, like Ethiopia, where ophthalmologists cannot be found easily (Ethiopia has only 95 ophthalmologists available for a population of 75million), speedy cataract detection is a far-fetched dream. On an average clinicians with the current cataract detection techniques take at least 15 min to detect cataract where as with Aulus Mobile it takes less than 1 min to detect cataract and that too without a doctor. Visit- eyenetra.com
Impact
Our inexpensive, highly mobile cataract diagnostic technique drastically reduces the cost to detect cataract and eliminates the need for trained clinicians for detection
Link - http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/200
Ok so I am currently serving my notice period in Capgemini :). Dec 23rd would be my last day in Capgemini and as the last day is coming near, I am getting emotional. I am an emotional guy lol, I hate changes... I hate being far from my family... I hate living in abroad lol.
Ironically, I would have to do this all.
I have got admission in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA to pursue higher studies, but on the flip side I would miss my friends, my family and Capgemini culture/colleagues. There are some mixed feelings for the time being. In hindsight, I can undoubtedly state that Capgemini is the best company I have ever worked for. Its culture, my peers, projects, working atmosphere and enormous other things all create a nurturing and amicable atmosphere.
How many of us can actually control our cravings :). Every human has certain cravings and is bound to fail resisting those. Its all about the mental strength which in turn makes that resistance possible. Now let’s compare cravings with the normal real means for sustaining. Can we humans, ever become so controllable that we can control our critical means of sustenance? This is really going to be interesting. Think about it like this - Can humans ever become so obedient that we can start avoiding our basics :) lol.
Animals, I must say have a strong mental strength and their loyalty towards their owners is actually the foremost thing they live for. "Otters" are a semi-aquatic fish eating mammals. (Wiki link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otter). Traditionally, Otters were very common for helping fisherman to catch fishes and this was once a very common practice in the world. In England, Otter fishermen existed until the end of the 19th century. These animals have some great abilities of finding fish and chasing them in the nets of the fishermen. They help finding fish hiding in the swamps, where it is difficult to fish in a normal way.
In rural areas of Khulna province in Bangladesh, on some rivers and swamps, one can still find fishermen who keep Otters to help them with fishing. Historically, fishing with Otters has been practiced in two ways. Using methods similar to those used in training dogs, the animals are taught either to catch individual fish and bring them to their masters or to drive fish into their masters fishing nets.
These animals are so loyal and trained that they catch fish in their mouth and bring back the fishes to the fisherman's boats. Interestingly Otter's staple food is also fish, often supplemented by frogs, crabs etc. I am quiet surprised to see this behavior. An animal who normally feeds on fishes, in this case catches fishes in his mouth and brings back the catch to the owner's (fisherman's) boat. After the days work fisherman appraises the work of the Otter's by feeding them heavily on fishes. So, basically an animal waits until his owner gifts him food and until that time it just does what is assigned to him ignoring his basic craving and his critical feed of living.
Ironically, I can never relate this loyal behavior of Otters to any of the characteristics of humans. This is one of the finest example of loyalty and restraining ones cravings. I wish, we humans can at least learn from these findings, if not imbibe.
So finally Ashutosh went to pursue his further studies in UK. We had spent 3 years together in Capgemini so its little sad when he has gone :(. Its so interesting to see how the atmosphere changes completely when only one guy in the group has gone. All except Ashutosh are still there, we still go to MR ;) (Ironical name for a place where we do timepass ;) ..Meeting rooms lol - where we do everything except meetings), we still sit at adda :) - Place in Plant 13 where we all sit after lunch ;) and yes we all still work together but still we dont enjoy much now. Ashutosh had its own way of enjoying and making an enjoyable atmosphere... We all will really miss him a lot but its also good to see a friend doing good in his career :).
Every one born waits for that one day, yes that’s true.... That one desire, that very second when it gets fulfilled, it’s that very moment which makes all that waiting worthy. It’s so beautiful and lovely to analyze :).
In our life's we all have certain aspirations and we always wish for those to come true. In due course many of those wants actually come true; but there is always that one desire, that one yearn for which one can wait till eternity, that one desire which when fulfilled we all think yes that's probably we were living for. Think about it, in each of our life's there is always that ‘one desire’ for which limits are never set, it’s like the person is born to achieve it. Believe me its there and thats truth, one just has to recognize it. Some may not agree with this but it’s not because such kind of desire doesn't exist for them, lol it exists, it’s just that they haven't recognized it yet. People wait whole of their life's waiting for that desire to get fulfilled.
Talking to elderly people, one gets to know how much happy and ecstatic that moment was when they achieved such desire. That one desire can be anything, some yearn to hear "Yes" from the person they love, some yearn to work for a specific reputed company, even some yearn to have a baby, elderly parents yearn to have their children live with them or even some yearn to get a specific degree etc, there is always that special one desire which makes our life's living worthy.
When I talked to my father about this, he admitted that he became happy many times enjoying the moments of fulfillment of his aspirations, but there was that one moment which he can never forget. He said that was the moment of a special fulfillment, that desire for which he was waiting for long. The joy of that moment is etched deep in his heart and he still remembers it as a special fulfillment. Although he became busy with his responsibilities and family chores and probably as life grows we all may become, but in some corner of the heart the wait and the yearn for that one special desire always breaths. The effect of fulfillment no matter gets mitigated but the yearn for that one desire is always eternal.
I was just thinking how many people have felt such kind of feeling and those who have felt are so lucky. It’s just lovely to fulfill that special desire and now when I ponder deeper into all this I think that special desire can never be created. It comes from the heart and people just have to recognize it. It’s never a desire that surges from materialistic situations. We all are probably just waiting for that one day and for that very one second to see that special desire getting fulfilled :). I am happy for those who have experienced such a feeling and for those who have not I wish "that one day" comes soon.
You must have heard about google buzz :) Well that product is made by my bro..He is the product manager in google for google buzz.. Thats launched today :)
Interestingly I was just bit hard by an ant :). Dont know from where it came on my bed :).
Result - I had to stop reading and thought to pen down some thing on my blog. I always wonder how life moves so fast...It was just a new year and now its already 19 days past the new year lol... can some one please get hold of this time :) Well I dont know why but this year 2010 looks very naughty to me :)... I think its going to be a mix of joy/sorrow... relaxation/busyness... turmoil/properness... management/mismanagement of everything lol... ... lets see :). There are many things which I have to do in this year and I hope they turn out well.
Rest currently at 12:40 AM me reading "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho and I must say he delves deep w.r.t philosophy. I cant comment anything more cause I am still in the middle of the book. He has his own peculiar style of rolling thoughts.
Last time when I was at onsite in New York, I didnt knew how to cook. This time I am sitting at the driving seat and trying to do some suicidal attempts in cooking lol :) Currently in Amsterdam I have tried to roll my hands on cooking a lot. These are pics of some of the dishes cooked by me.
Well I would say I never imagined I could cook and believe me these all were edible. Although some ups and downs in taste but better than usual boring burgers on which I would have ideally survived lol.
Image 1 - Beans ki sabjhi
Image 2 - Alu ki bhajhi
Image 3 - Cabbage Image 4 - Yellow dal - Dont know the name of the dal :) Image 5 - Paneer ki bhaji Image 6 - Paneer ki bhaji with
pao :) and Mexican tortilla (My
Thing is in a way its really good. Cooking is one thing which I think everybody should know. Makes one little independent. Good to know :)
On delving more somehow I am beginning to like cooking and now I want to try out different things. Lets see where this all takes me... U never know maybe one day I may give tough to Mr. Sanjeev Kapoor hehe :) (High hopes :))
Will keep you all updated on my cooking odysseys :) Let me see for how long I am safe lol :)
“Others couldn’t do is later, crux is why we couldn’t do”
Few days back I was traveling back home from office. Have you ever seen the world with perceiving eyes :) Lets put this way, watch out and feel the abnormal next when u stop at traffic signals, next when you pass through a railway bridge and next when you move through a slummy area. There is a lot to be seen and understood if and only if you want to see it.
Sitting in the car with Ravi (My office and childhood friend), we were having a very casual talk over this. I would like to scribe here the complete situation before explaining what I intend to say. There were beggars who were amputated, there was a lady sitting at the corner feeding her new born, a group of small children begging and some transsexual asking money. Few children were selling flowers and few were selling clothes. I saw around and there were 20-30 cars at the signal, good chunk of people were crossing roads and some were shopping. I want to ask why is that people do not consider this whole situation abnormal, why is that things which are prevalent from years and years normal and accepted to people. Why is that people shut their car windows when a beggar knocks instead why doesn’t they ask themselves why is this guy begging? Why is that you say “Agge Bado” casually and continue normally with your chit-chat. Why don’t you at least show concern of why this situation is prevailing? We demand change by sitting idle and treating abnormal as normal. Lol :) Why do you not treat the indifference as the indifference?
It’s a trauma to see this all, no matter we see these all innumerable times everyday but still this is just accepted. Appearance of this kind of situation is so commonly found that our eyes/mind doesn’t even bother to feel the indifference. I understand that probably most of this situation is manipulated and falsely created to woo money. But have you ever imagined why people are falling to such limits to participate in such deceptive activities. Root cause is not mentality but its just penury. Root cause is not easy money but the only solution to get money.
India has population of 1.2 billion of which 30 lakh children are living on streets. 1.5 crore children are working as bonded laborers, 1 out of every 6th girl child does not lives, 50% of children do not have access to education. Giving this data we say “Children are the future of the nation”, does this make sense? After 60 years of independence 56% of rural villages are yet to have access to electricity. Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Uttranchal, Madhya Pradesh etc are some of the states where significant number (more than 10%) of villages are yet to be electrified. There is lot to be done!!!
As compared to other countries there is a huge financial gap between rich and poor in India. Problem is not about why these things are prevailing; problem is about people who don’t feel this as abnormal. I see thousands of people passing away, everyone deeply indulged in their day to day chores and nobody is feeling this indifference. Why is that nobody takes all this as weird. It’s among us someone is our minister who blatantly treats this as normal. Crux is first to feel this as abnormal and then only few will at least do something to eradicate this. This is not normal, please don’t accept this.
I don’t want to complain any kind of System in this. I intent to jerk our inner system first, start looking at these things as problems, this is not accepted, show ur indifference attitude, and hence do something. If we think we can, then we should go beyond our limits. Join certain movements (Pratham, Asha, SmileIndia etc), we live here and only we can make a change. We can help in N numbers of ways it’s only about scouting the possibilities. I used to help NGO-Pratham in Stamford, US after office hours to create a publicity plan for a social event. If you are a doctor, finance professional, technical guy, lawyer etc any professional please come forward. Jerk yourself!!! These movements need you all. A help can be of any kind, at least show you are there. If you think you are changing one, India thinks we are changing crores.
Treat indifference as indifference; make a change and hence expect a change.
To succeed in India “One has to work like an American and think like an Indian”
Okay let’s try it all again :). Yes I did stopped blogging 2 years back... Was thinking a lot and then just clicked and thought lets blog. Its raining heavily outside, probably Mumbai has to see one more 26th July :). I was just thinking what makes some one proper. Do we really know what this word "proper" means? Well if I look around everything seems proper. Few people close their eyes and rests have changed the meaning of "proper" to suit their needs/properness :) Yes everything is proper if I want to believe that way.
But truly there is always more to it, something which is not blatant, something which everyone knows but it’s hidden, something which nobody wants to accept. I am forcing here to look around for properness with its real definition not manipulated. Believe me things are the same from age old, our qualities, our values and our culture. It’s just that their definition has been manipulated to suit what is right for someone.
The amazing irony out here is people have forgotten the real meaning/context of being proper and whatever has been manipulated is all right for them. I do not intend to change the way others think but yes I aspire that at least people know that they are not at the right path. There exists a difference between being on a right path without knowing whether its right and being on a wrong path with knowing its wrong. No matter what happens I still think latter is much better than former. Latter knows he is doing something wrong and hence is fully accountable to it but former doesn’t even know where he is heading. Path is irrelevant; issue is all about "knowing" whether the path is right or wrong.
Hence I truly believe in India if one has to succeed "One has to work like an American and think like an Indian". I do not want to enter into American/Indian idiosyncrasies but believe me if you have actually understood what I intended to say above, don’t ever do the opposite to succeed in India. :) In India you wont be allowed to have a common meaning for the word "proper" rather everyone has their own meaning cultivated as per their own needs. Definitons are created, believed and burried every single day. Accept this fact and move on :) Atleast you will breathe comfortably :)
There are somethings in life which one can only view but cant really play it. So what happens when we see the world through different eyes. what happens when a subtle truth of life, sustaining, which as an individual no one can deny is contradicted. There are answers and understandings for each and every point in life but probably we are so indulged in our day to day activities to sustain our self that we deny those, deny to face it, deny to accept it. We know theres something wrong but we do not want to knock the roots of it in our minds only because its accepted .. it has become mundane and no one wants to jerk the normalcy cause its just OK for all..thats it. I used to catch a bus from deonar depot to mbp where I used to work previously. Every day morning I used to see a small boy aged nearly 8 - 10 years selling newspapers. Catching bus from the same bus stop frequently I somehow got to know him a bit. knowing him and till the time I was just seeing him, there existed a huge difference. We perceive what we actually see but there is actually more to it. He used to reach bus stop at 6:30 AM when the first morning press lot comes, be there till nearly 10 am where in his stock of papers are over. Then he used to rush home sleep for about 2-3 hours and then go to municipal school from 1 to 6. At 7 in the evening he used to be again at the same bus stop this time selling peanuts and hence has a different profile, sells till night 10-11 and then does his homework at night. Coming back from office I get down at the same bus stop and see this boy selling peanuts.. What I intend to describe is yes thats his schedule and we all know that if he has to sustain himself he has to go through all this. I am not relating probably like everyone does but still theres a fact that cant be denied. I tried to see the world through his eyes and it was terrific. In a broader manner hes busy from the age of 10, his life doesn't has any time to play and theres no complains on any front cause its just accepted. We all are busy in our profession, there are times when we lead a hectic life and theres also a end to it but co relating to his life hes never gonna have time for himself, time to respite from his day to day chores. There are no weekends in his life..lol . Would anyone of us leading a nearly stable life would like to be him. Its really hard to play his life nevertheless we all can only vision it. There are innumerable scenarios probably in each and every corner but we even fail to recognize them cause in our life, our mind has accepted them as normal. We as an individual can help them but root cause is about the existence of these things which needs to be eliminated . I do not want to question system in this, but I would really like to jerk that "normalcy" factor, at least this shouldn't be disregarded and then only something can be done!!!
Buy a high-performance Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG coupe or take a 2 months round-the-world cruise in a royal suite on Queen Mary 2 or buy a single stock of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA). Yes, a single stock of BRKA, a holding company owned by Warren Buffett (2nd richest man in the world), is costing more than 100,000 $ (approx 46 Lakh Indian Rupees). Share price of BRKA became the first stock to reach the six-digit mark at $104,000. So the fact is, if one had put $10,000 into Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1970s, he would have over $50 million now. Buying his first stock at the age of 11 at 38$ and now handling a holding firm of annual revenue 81 billion $, its just awesome investment strategies implemented. Being mentored under Benjamin Graham and fostering his growth on the concept of "investment cigar butts" :)) is truly a living legend investor. "Cigar Butts" are the companies who have been discarded by the stock market but who still have a few "puffs" of values left in them. Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor", probably still considered the bible of investors, explains it well. Finding such companies requires a tremendous patience and intense balance-sheet analysis. Working merely on this concept his investment foresight convinced him to buy coca cola in 1988 for 11$ when it was a wall street failure converting it to be a whooping 13 billion $ current stake and adding many more bigger names in his portfolio which were earlier a big failures. No matter a common man can never think of buying a stock of BRKA, but can always give reverence to a common man who built up this stock. Its just amazing.
So I am already one month old in Accenture..I had some diversified offers and deciding where to join churned my brain allot. Finally considering the kind of profile I was getting in Accenture, also it being in mumbai and having the best of the critical projects in the industry for it being among the top 3 players in world in software services and consultancy and also due to some other positive factors, I accepted their offer. Other offers were from a top Investment Banking firm, Lehman Brothers, and from some other pune based soft firms. Anyways closing it here this I would say is life from work perspective.. rest I think there would be some new developments coming in my life apart from work, which will actually open some good doors in my life..lol .. will blog soon about that. Rest currently me sitting in office on a official holiday :(, damn there seems to be some errors and my team waiting for things to get stable again. Well one major development in my circle was of course priya and tarun's wedding. Finally..yah finally they had tied knot with each other. Heres wishing them a magnificent married life and I think probably now they will stop fighting..lol. Well after a long time I had attended a punjabi wedding and man its just amazing.. awesome fun!! me now just waiting desparately for my brother's wedding :)) .. Rest now I really cant remember what more to blog ..just blogged to keep my blog allive..will blog more soon!
Well it has been really long since I last blogged…cause I am really busy with lot many things going around. So latest is, I am coming back to India in July, date not yet fixed but in any case I have started wrapping up things as quickly as possible. It’s good to go back since I was missing my family and friends a lot. Rest on work front, phase 1 of my project has ended successfully hence nothing much left ahead for the time being… leading a very cool life w.r.t office :). Well during the last weekend we had gone for a trek at Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. It was supposed to be a half day small trek which got converted into one day complex trek …thanks to sai’s navigation, we got lost and didn’t knew how to come out of the jungle. After walking about 10 km’s in the wrong direction sai realized he’s heading all of us wrongly…really felt like killing him... :) Anyways after walking about 2 miles more we were on the road, although in the wrong direction but out of the dense forest, drooping like anything but still managed to reach the highest point of the valley. The view from the top was simply awesome… truly heavenly. So well, all in all it was a good tiring weekend. Rest one very peculiar thing I am doing these days is learning horse riding. It’s a 27 days very costly course and I have attended about 3 sessions till now. I had done booking for this course long back hence had to attend although I know I would be leaving in between while going to India. The trainer, named steve, is really good and the horse uff … I don’t know why he’s hostile towards me. I have a tendency to rise my legs up instead of stretching down in trot and canter hence I have fallen 3 times while riding in 3 sessions… that junk horsy never understands I am a novice and starts running fast in between… :). Well amazingly at least after 3 sessions I have found a solution for controlling pace … hence saving my bones…lol!!! Rest for the time being I am a bit excited since I am going back to India and also very busy hence blogged in short… happy for I would be eating my mom’s cooking back home...lol.
Nothing is eternal, there’s always a transition maybe gradual, but there is. Everything in this world changes gradually even the smallest instance of life changes in due time. Change is always bound to happen, if not for a positive aspect, probably for a negative but no emotions, no living, no moments, no relation can inhibit this. It’s always in our hands to extract something from this changing time maybe good or bad that is left for the mind to decide and we have to be strong enough to have focus and passion and that’s what I have been doing. Extracting as much as I can from this changing time, incessant life, by doing whole lots of things as compared to 3 - 4 years back. Well so on social volunteering front I have just recently joined a chapter of Asha in Stamford. Asha Stamford main focus is at providing education to poor children in some tribal dominated districts in Assam. I used to do some social volunteering with Asha and Pratham in Mumbai also, hence decided until I am here possibly till august I would volunteer in publicity division of Asha for at least 3-4 hours a week. Asha’s this month project is to show a series of three good Hindi movies in a theater during Saturday’s and the funds from it would go for charity. So currently I am running here and there convincing all desi’s, Americans, even clients to attend at least one for this good cause. Posting fliers/emails in all malls, hotels, companies and Indian grain stores. Well what I have found is its more hard to convince an Indian in US to see an Hindi movie … man as if they were born americans… junk...or else they probably know how Hindi movies are …lol…anyways lets see how it goes on. Rest on my work front my projects are going well, we just released phase 1 and results were good and even got appreciated. Rest during weekends I go for boating, tennis, visit some exotic places and view picturesque nature, which is one of my passions, it just gives me an amazing feeling. Rest my studies are also going well and I think I would probably be able to take a date near august. So currently I am extracting lots from my life and I think that’s the perfect way to live, extracting as much from this passing time as one can, making one’s life complete and contented and that’s what is important at the end of the day. My brother quotes “never be in your comfort zone…always thrive for something…cause u live once …should live tons…” and I truly admire this.
Life in true sense is hard to comprehend. Who controls life .. who controls happiness .. who controls sorrow.. life in true sense is uncontrollable.. These are emotions, which prevail in everyone's life ..all living has to pass through all shades of life.. but then too life is moving.. life is sailing with no predestined destination.
We don't know where we are ending ourselves ..we just try to make our life’s better. We parse through different stages of life.. some gives sorrow some gives bliss. Time rolls we get matured ..we thrive hard ..we make life better.. but we still don't know where we are ending ourselves...
we know what we want to achieve. We win it.. some moments make us happy ..some moments make us envy. life is still sailing .. still don't know where we are ending our selves.. we just know we are here .. there’s no control.. there’s no choice.. still don't know what’s the destination.. still don't know what is life..
Sometimes u just click in right group.. and this time I did ..this weekend I really had no plans but surprisingly it went great. I had gone for an official meet this saturday morning in west haven, damn I had to wake at 6 on saturday since I had to travel a distance of an hour. There I met few TCS guys .. after the meeting we came back to stamford and assembled at sachin's place for an coffee (Intro - Sachin from TCS , guy whom I have just met a few hours back). It was 10 am, weather was great and we all decided to go to new jersy to eat desi food.. It was really descided in an split second and we were on roads .. nobody knew the route .. nobody knew the exits well.. but we were just heading blindly. In between we halted for few minutes at taxotere bridge.. its illegal to halt on interstate, but as desi's we couldnt resist halting and enjoying the view..man what a feel that was, viewing picturesque nature from taxotere bridge and listening to John Denver - Annie's,.. man it was ecstatic.. it was actually tranquilizing and I was just spellbound.. beauty can not be put in words and this view actually substantiated this. We reached bridgewater at around 1 in the afternoon, ate amazing food and were planning to go to edison. But somehow everyone wanted to go back early hence we came back to stamford. All in all it was a great day... initially I was getting bored in here but now i think i am beginning to settle down .. summer has just started and soon lots activities will begin to flow.. people say stamford is really very beautiful in spring.. and hence I am eagerly waiting for spring... Also since its GE's quater closing hence lots of my office friends are coming here from mumbai for 15-20 days and I would be totally busy with them.. so its actually going fine these days..One more update is I think when I will be back to INDIA i would be able to speak mallu .. man my room mate (Sabri) no matter how much i stop him, he goes on playing mallu songs on his labtop... he has actually destroyed my taste for music..:) ...but anywayss hes a very nice guy and a very good cook too.. and hence I am learning allot from him w.r.t cooking.. from dals..to sabzi'ss and now to pasta,,, I think I am doing well ...
time passing away and I am already 10 days old in US. I have learnt to cook dal and alu ki bhaji in here through a colleague. I think cooking is easy altough one should have enough interest which rather is very difficult for me. Hence altough I am learning to cook but mostly I am living on frozen food. My project with GE Asset Mang. is going great and with so many R&d's to do I think I will be very busy in comning weeks but in anycase I will never work on weekends. This weekend I went to new york and checked out empire state building. It is a 102 floor building with a jet lift i suppose. It took 63 seconds to reach 85th floor. Man i was simply amazed. The picturesque view from top was simply great. I was accompained by navin.. (Intro - Navin Srivastava RAIT my batch and also my childhood friend working in Oracle in wilkes barre) . We stayed there for about one and a half an hour and were just thinking if one falls from 102 floor what would be the result and considering our pernicious minds we actually tried calculating the duration of the fall .. but in anycase the view was just amazing.. I have clicked lots of snaps but still havent transfered those on my labtop. I will be giving the net link soon. Rest the comning weekend I will be leaving to philadelphia to my bro's place. Hes pursuig his MBA from wharton and hence I would be able to see the wharton campus. These days I am actually feeling very lonely.. In here nobody works after 5 and then I am all allone .. After 5 I really dont understand what I should be doing.. I am glad loitering around the city I came across a public library and was simply in awe to see their collection. That is the only time pass I am doing currently ... reading whole lot of books all allone in stamford sipping up coffee and waiting for the weekend where in I can go to meet my bro .. and one more update is I will comning to India this june since I have cut shorted my visit out here.. and I am really happy for that.
reached stamford safely.. i guess i was lucky to come through emirates..it had loads of entertainment.. with 100+ movies..i was not at all bored in the flight.. rest i shaked hands with andrew agassi at dubai airport.. altough he lost his match in dubai haha..anywyss.. its too cold out here..current temp is 1. C and yesterday when i landed at jfk,new york there was a heavy snow fall..i went outside only for 5 minutes last night and it was bad.. very frigid... i had never in my life lived at so low temperatue.. its really hard.. but its a new experience and lets see how it goes on further.. yesterday night a girl from my team cooked pasta ...today client gave a pizza party..this night another girl is giving party...so for the timebeing iam managing to abstain myself from self cooking ...i was feeling lonely when i landed.. but now since so many guys are here iam enjoying but missing my family and friends alot... will blog more soon ..by for now..
well just came to know an hour before that I would be leaving to stamford on tuesday most probably...I really dont have much time cause I came to know an hour before... have to do lots of shopping... bad news is i would be going for a long term hence i will miss a lot many people out here..but cant help it happens... just signed in to blog this..cyaa will write more soon
well its 1:45 at night..and iam tired././ i was reading a whole lot of things. well i have started alot of general blogging cause probably that would keep my blog allive. updates are today evening i went to BARC and booked 6 months weekends slot once agian for playing tennis at the BARC, nilgiri tennis court which i would be going at evenings mostly. I think there can be no place in mumbai more peaceful than BARC..I have done my schooling from BARC hence i have most of my childhood friends there which gives me lots of reasons to visit it frequently on weekends and spend time..its amazing to be in there at nights...just amazing...so calm and serene.... also nothing much going on in office these days...the project is in the verge of ending..not much work around....rest i am in search of a pure Golden Retriever pup..lets see where can i get a pure one..i can spend a lot for a pure one...lets see...thats all for today..
These pics are of Tamil Nadu chief minister Ms. Jayalalitha and some local MLA's. Checking those I am still perplexed about the situation. Well is it a condescending moment, an obsequious behavior or an exploitation of power. We all know what it is and hence probably it is motley of all of above. For us this is actually a cheap scenario and is probably hard to accept the fact, but in any case this happens only in India. I was actually in awe checking these pics but then this is prevailing everywhere in India. Reverence is given to an individual because of his clout rather to his deeds, his persona … In here this is totally crap and I don’t even think there is any scope of improvement also… No doubt we have come a long way since Independence. The standard of living has risen, there are technological advancements, the country is striving to achieve economic stability. We are a developing nation which is empowered to frame its foreign and national policies keeping in mind the interests of its people but still, people in here, think low…
Well I have been asked by n people until now about soni ericsson K750i and hence I am posting it here… well apporva now u must be happy to read this post rather my last one?? what say??… I am using this model from last 3 months now… and I suppose this would be the right time to give an review … I have bought it from Singapore for (680 Singaporian $) approx 19k with receipt… at that time in India it was 28k with receipt and it was also recently launched… I am not myself in support of buying costly mobiles probably due to my careless nature … but if one wants good tech one has to spend…
oka so here goes the review:-
Size: - Firstly, the size of the handset is just right, small and light enough to fit in your pocket without noticing it, yet easy to hold and use. Where as in the case of nokia N series its like carrying stone in your pocket
Screen: -The screen is fantastic, large (176 x 220) and bright with 262,000 colours TFT display, you can clearly see what's displayed even in sunlight.
Camera: - I am not too fussy for a camera quality in a mobile but this one’s actually best in the market. This phone has a split personality; it secretly wants to be camera but is trapped in a phones body! Because when you flip the cover on its back it ceases to be a phone and becomes a fully fledged 2 mega pixel camera - how cool is that? With 2 mega pixel camera , auto focus, 4x digital zoom, a macro mode, night mode, flash light, self-timer, white balance, time stamping, choice of normal or fine picture quality, effects like negative, sepia which is actually awesome, solarize. No beat for its camera… It also has a video recording of 1 hour… One can create multiple photo albums…and also led flash is simply awesome…
Mp3: I actually went for this for its mp3 quality … Its mp3 quality is comparable to Ipod …with extendable memory till 2 GB imagine how many playlists one can make that too in a mobile … has lots of sound effects treble, bass, equalizer etc.
Memory: - The phone comes with 38 MB shared memory and a 64MB Memory Stick Duo card ... memory stick can be extended to 2GB…only thing is sony memory stick is bit costly compared to other brands…
Networks: - GSM Tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz and has triband…
Battery: - Battery is Li-Po 900 mAh (Lithium polymer is best in the market for mobiles ) … The battery can live for 400 hours stand-by or 9 hours talk-time - so far it has gone 3 days without a charge. It's also light (99g for the whole phone) and seemly quick to charge, about 2-3 hours.
Data Transfer: - can be done through Bluetooth, Infrared port, USB and GPRS (32 - 48 kbps)… for Bluetooth I have bought a billionton bluetooth device to connect to my comp …its cheap in range of 500 – 800 … gives me 40kb/sec speed… Here comes a negative point also…this mobile doesn’t support Wlan and 3G…although it’s not a big issue but if you r spending u don’t want to miss anything right??
Bluetooth - well I was about to say on that! Bluetooth has to be one of the best inventions for mobile phones in recent times, by definition mobiles should be mobile, and they shouldn't have to rely on wires. Manufactures, for some unknown reason, have been reluctant to put it in but in this case Sony have and what a relief. I bought Sony’s own Bluetooth hands free for (138 Singaporian $) approx 4ooo that pops on your ear to use specially with this phone. And it’s brilliant. It's even clearer than using the phone it's self because the sound is planted directly in your ear.
I haven’t explored my mobile much due to time constraints and also I get bugged up … but if u actually want to do some kidas then this one has a music, video and photo DJ’s…a remote control application for media player and presenter… You can also connect your phone to a photo printer to take printouts…well what I meant to say is there’s lot in the piece but only if one has time to devote….
Well theres lot of comparision between nokia’s and sony’s …well I must say nokia makes mobiles for masses but if u want quality go for high range sony ericcson’s …no beat for that… well it takes time to transit oneself from nokia to sony… but after 2 -3 days one gets used to and u land up in the world of tech rather than just using the phone to talk… I don't normally consider Sony to make best electronics in a particular sector rather they are great all-rounder but here I would suggest they have created one of the best phones in the market. Well so all in all great mobile with a big claim … “If you want all those things that this phone provides and have time to use them all efficiently”, then this is an excellent phone and it rocks.
Well time waits for nobody and this is actually truth… man just yesterday I was talking with manas… was in barc and was sitting in my junior college ground… well I was just in here … and still remember I used to play cricket in this ground… used to do so much masti out here… rohit, apooorva, anil, rajeev, ameya and whole gang…then was in college ... lived my 4 years there and did dhaamal… did some stupid things although... and now it has been 2+ years passed college life also…. Man when I retrospect its actually quiet weird… feels little nostalgic but then this happens in everyone’s life… people around me haven’t ever changed…these guys were always there with me throughout my childhood … I have grown with them… we had talked at different instances of our life’s and the only change is the matter of the talk… our talk now is more matured … our discussions kept changing but people around are same old pals… initially it was 12thresults… then college …then jobs … and now mba…and this will never cease ...this is intermittent … life just goes on no matter how much we ponder … no matter whatever we do… time passed has passed… well many would have got bored reading this…but this is life in reality…life in existence
well guys me very busy with GE's new project and if my team delivers well ..will be on holiday from next week and start blogging....for the timebeing no time to eat also..............anywayssss,, atleast i opened it..
(I dont believe it firmly ..but its the best astrologer at least I think so)
A special thought -
Many of us have blog's these days...so please if at least we could help publicize some NGO or non profit org who are actually serving ardently it would be great....
Join these movements if u can... and if not at least publicize them by giving as a link in your blog’s:-
http://www.nanhikali.org/index-NK.htm
Nanhi kali is a special project of the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, aimed at providing primary education to the underprivileged girl child in India. I think no matter how much we earn a little bit should go towards helping needful.
http://www.ashanet.org
Asha is a secular organization with main focus to provide education to underprivileged children in India.
Special Quote -
"You act and feel", "not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like."
My incursions with cooking :)
