I AM THE HIGHWAYSTAR..............

Total IPL - Total Indian "Ph"un League

2009-04-23T20:54:00.002+05:30

Well well its that time of the year yet yet again...

The Indian Premier League - a series of thundering T-20 Cricket Matches season 2 has started....

The only good thing this time which is lacking this season is the Indian grounds.....and thus the amazing Indian crowd which adds another flavor to cherish during the matches. The Indian Crowd (in this case the City Crowd) always acts as a motivating pump which keeps pumping energy into the team they are backing......ahhh that thing is being missed so much....that noise.....and that sheer number in which they are present in the stadium......

Last year IPL was the reason why I finally decided to bring in the new TV and TATA Sky connection into my home.....and it surely is paying off till today with IPL season 2....

This year also the IPL has started of in a great manner - atleast the first match was much better compared to the first match of IPL season 1.

And my team - Delhi Daredevils is totally on a roll......after having demolished Punjab Kings XI they destroyed Chennai Super Kings......but the second match was the best match in IPL 2 till date and main reason for celebrating this victory is that in this match the worlds best opening pair - Gambhir and Viru managed to get out early on in the very 1st 2 overs.

This IPL is becoming way too creative than last year. A player from Shahrukh's camp - Knight Riders - is supposedly managing to sneak blogposts into his blog under the name of Fake IPL Player. Here he is listing out the internal working of the team and internal politics within Knight Riders. Whether it be true or not....but it surely is a lot of fun....

As of now I am just hoping Delhi Daredevils manage to lift the IPL trophy this year. They so much deserve it.

And the posts shall keep coming in.......for now.....am back to watching Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Rajasthan Royals (Shahrukh vs. Shilpa Shetty) - so much for glamours sake. I hope Shilpa ooops Rajasthan Royals win this match.....

AIG still investing in India!!!!!!

2008-11-24T18:14:00.004+05:30

In this kind of financial chaos, AIG can pride itself in getting free advertising. And in India the name comes alongside SBI, what better show of power of brand can happen for a company which is struggling to survive.

And just for reference, you just need to click into the link and check the article for the error rectification. The journos are so pre-occupied with AIG name that instead if mentioning IAG, they end up mentioning AIG. Luckily in the article the mistake has not been repeated in the content, else we would have seen TATA fuming heavily upon AIG management.

Long live the errors like these giving unasked for advertising and PR without spending even a single penny

So far so good......

2008-11-05T23:42:00.003+05:30

hmmmm it has been a long time since my last post.....just over ten months....

So just had a feeling that before the year comes to an end.....I should make my return....

By the end of this month.....I shall be completing 2 years in Bangalore......i would say the longest stay yet in any city over past 5 years by Highwaystar.....

And on 5th Nov, 2008...finally the local RTO caught up with me and my car......and now I will have to pay the local differential road tax....[I sincerely hope that after paying that today, I get a smooth ride on Bangalore roads...without any potholes....else whats the point in paying Road tax]. I would say "Ab aaya oont pahaar ke neeche".

This year has seen me joining a new company - a startup....hoping that it works out well :) so far the journey I would say has been good.....stumbling blocks are there...which will always be expected in a start-up.....but hopefully slowly all these will be sorted out.. :)

Nine pins have been falling at a rapid pace this year.......

This year has seen me travelling from Jodhpur to Thrissur....yet again...and some more trips planned around.... :)

Thrissur trip was like something which I will keep recalling...for the way I managed to reach there......3 bus changes......and one section from Bangalore to Coimbatore....I was sitting on the bus floor (luckily was a Volvo)......then from there one rickety bus to Palakkad.....and another change in Palakkad....one more rickety bus to Thrissur.... :) it was one journey to remember.... [Book tickets on time :P]

and now 2 months 2 trips is the gut feel I have is going to be minimum......can become 3 too :D

I would say...the journey is still beginning :)

And am sure more is too follow now on..... :)

Another one Bites the.......HRC

2008-01-30T00:20:00.001+05:30

Steve walks warily down the street,
with the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
machine guns ready to go

Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust

Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
(Another one bites the dust - Queen)

This was one of the song which was played in there........

It had one of the best crowds I have seen in Bangalore at any of its popular night spots :-D ;-)

The music volume for hard rock was just perfect not excessively loud....

Biggest of all......it was not having the chhota chhota bachcha (high school or college going kids) crowd which you tend to see everywhere in Bangalore - in any of the major pubs out here.......

In the above song two lines are so apt for this place:

"Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat"

Well if you have not yet experienced this place and moreover you also enjoy rock - then you better be ready for this experience.......it had entered India first in Mumbai and it has finally hit Bangalore.....

The place being talked about here is none other than:Well it has finally opened up here in Bangalore - Namma Bengalooru

This place has replaced and erstwile pub - 1912 and Barista near Anil Kumble Circle and is on St. Marks Road. 1912 was also one of the classiest places to spend evenings at. HRC surely has done justice to it.

The interiors are just way too amazingly well done. Firstly, its split into two zones - in one area - on the right side as you enter - you get to see THE BAR and a Stage just above the bar. Maybe the title ON THE ROCKS might have started like that. That is the area having the couch seating with hard rock playing at a medium high volume level - a level at which you can head bang and you can talk. On the left side as you enter is the area, where the decibel levels are very much lower compared to THE OTHER SIDE.....In this area - it has been given a look of fine dining with proper chairs and tables. Thus, this place has hit it perfectly to both the kind of people:
1. Who love there music HARD and LOUD
2. Who love there music HARD but SOFT

Secondly, the biggest draw here will be all the stuff on display there. Jimi Hendrix's guitar has been placed very prominently and your eyes surely will grab the attention there. Then it is full of snaps of all major Rock legends, their actual costumes, the instrument they played.

Now lastly comes the food and drinks....hic hic......I can say it serves one of the best Long Island Iced Tea. There is a lot of variety in food. Haven't been able to try a lot - but whatever has been tried was pretty good.

But now that you might plan to try this place out - you better follow dress code here. Floaters would make the huge bouncers out there throw you out and after looking at them you yourself will back off......

Overall....a real good destination has opened for Bangalore rock lovers who have some excess money to spare......am sure am gonna be its repeat customer.....till then:

The fireball that we rode was moving
But now we've got a new machine
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah the freaks said
Man those cats can really swing
They got music in their solar system
They've rocked around the Milky Way
They dance around the Borealice
They're Space Truckin' everyday

Come on
(Space Truckin' - Deep Purple)

Monday Bloody Monday.....

2008-01-22T00:18:00.000+05:30

Well.... 21st Jan 2008....just 3 weeks into a brand new year and stock market says "Wish you a very Happy New Year...BANG BANG BANG...."

And what a day it has been.....with the markets creating new records...the one which one may not like....or you can say one may dislike to like....but its all in the game....

The below image says it all.....

SENSEX 17605.35 -1408.35
NIFTY 5208.80 -496.50

And the photo below says it all....

(From Economic Times)

A story of Bubbly....

2008-01-20T23:32:00.000+05:30

This story is set in a pub....

Its about the Pub, the lights...the glasses...and BUBBLY....

So it goes like...

In a pub once there was a Bubbly....

Sitting there on a table with such calmness.....just like a lull before a storm.....:D

Just at the right moment.....Bubbly starts moving and starts dancing to the rythm of the music playing.....

and the dance begins.....

It continues....and continues.....

But all of a sudden.....the wild crazy dance on the table....just stops....

It was unbelievable a dance.....

Just after capturing the imagination of everyone on the table.....Bubbly simply vanishes.....leaving everyone asking for MORE!!!!

ye dil maange MORE!!!!

Where's my Bubbly gone......koi jaaye dhoondh ke laaye...hic hic.....

Communication breaks barriers.......

2008-01-16T22:45:00.000+05:30

The TV Commercial of the above is a yet another Gem from Bharti (Airtel) stable....

Came across this big bill-board at Trinity circle (Bangalore) while driving back home....

The statement written on the bill-board is so true in whatever part of your life you apply it to....either with friends or professionally or at personal levels....it holds perfectly true.....now days even in cricket!!!!

So finally after some real long break from blogging arena.....I am back :) and it does feel gud.....

This new year had decided to re-start with my blogging and here I am and am sure I shall be regular in this.... :)

Two friends have been pretty much asking for a long long time.....why the blogging is on a pause and when shall the same start.....and here it goes.... :)

The Journey

2007-07-15T18:45:00.001+05:30

Hmmmm.....its been a while since I last mentioned about my various trips....
Well over the past 3-4 months since April have travelled to 3 places and one of them being Delhi....which needs no mention....home visit...ghar ka khaana.....catching up with frnds there n all...

In April.....had a chance to go to Ranganathittu a Bird Wildlife Sanctuary on the route to Mysore from Bangalore. The Pics can be found at:

8th April, 2007: Ranganathittu and Srirangapatna

So this was a real BIRD WATCHING trip. Reached there by around 8:30 am and then there you can get a ten to fifteen minute boat ride around the sanctuary which is basically located in a very small area on river cauvery (this small area also is an advantage), the density of birds is way too high). Crocodiles are also available for viewing in this area (you can consider that as a complimentary view along with the birds).

While on the journey back we visited Srirangapatnam and sangam. This was my second visit to Srirangapatnam - earlier one had been jab mein chhota bachcha thha......

The second journey was in June to Hogenekkal falls - on the route to Salem from Bangalore - 180 Kms from Bangalore. Also managed to achieve 180 Kmph speed in my car on Hosur road. The last time I had been to this falls, they were furious. It was post monsoon and Caivery river was at that time full with water and the falls could be seen in full glory, and the restrictions on the boatings were there. This time around the journey happened before the monsoons came over. The water was there in the river, but the the feeling of calmness was prevailing over the whole area. The falls had shrunk and you could actually go under various small small falls without any fear.

The tradition of me donating something to the river cauvery in form of lenses continued, though this time it was not as expensive a donation like the last time. This time around I donated my spectacles to the river.

The pics link will be put up shortly for this trip.

And in this month - July first week, I had been visiting home.......

As of now the weather around Bangalore is asking to make one more short trip.....and something needs to be planned asap.....

River of Dreams......

2007-07-02T21:08:00.000+05:30

It is one of the most beautiful songs with really beautiful lyrics to which one can relate at some or the other point in their life....

here is the song lyrics:

River of Dreams
Artist: Billy Joel

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the river so deep
I must be lookin' for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross
even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
I try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what it is I've been looking for
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear
To a river so deep
I've been searching for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I'd never lose
Something somebody stole
I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I finally find what it is I've been looking for
(Two beat Pause)
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night (break)

I’m not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That is runnin' to the promised land (Long Four beat Pause)

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We're all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night

Bird Watching :D

2007-04-08T23:50:00.000+05:30

8th April, 2007: Ranganathittu and Srirangapatna

Highwaystar Back

2007-04-01T09:09:00.000+05:30

Well well well.....

It has been a long long time since I logged into my Blogger account and voila....it has all changed....and a good change....

Now is the time to get the train rolling....chhuck chhuck chhuck chhuck....

4 months and I have been in Bangalore....

Though its another case, I have still now taken any breaks to go on a leisure trip till now - need to start doing that.

Aha...4 months down the line....my dear Canon EOS350D has been feeling neglected, just like this blog, I need to do something about it.

Now the thing which I miss max after leaving Chennai are the amazing beaches.....what fun it used to be to be sittin on the beach with breeze blowing late in the night....or just having fun on the beach when it was raining....

Anyways all this will slowly fall in place.

The World Cup died an early death with the exit of Pakistan and India in the very first round....

Wow...where has Indian cricket come to 25 years after winning World Cup. This sure is gonna be reflected in some major changes which will in a short while happen with Indian Team.

The World Cup this year also had its lowest moment with the death (or murder) of the Pakistani coach - Bob Woolmer

And now the king of advertisement spenders - Pepsi has had to work out a way to salvage its investments in the World Cup with the Blue Bullion theme falling all apart.....its time for Bollywood to take over the reigns....

But in advertising world in the Telecom side....its Motorola which is creating the waves.....the new Motorokr advt featuring Abhishek Bachchan (of Miss Aishwarya Rai's to be husband and might be to be Ghar Jamai fame). This advt. simply just simply ROCKS.....especially the last scene of the advt where Abhishek is shown as dead all set for cremation wrapped in white lying down and all the people around him crying and then suddenly his head starts shaking.....truly depicting the theme for the phone "Music Addiction by Motorokr". Another good thing about this advt is that is is able to communicate its selling points effectively....

The advt can be checked out at: The AB Motorokr Ad

The advt is made in a hindi movie format - where there is a Maa praying to get her son back in a Temple, a jung ka elaan, AB getting beaten, ABs wife declaring the son she is goin to have is not his but his friend and in each of these situations AB ends up singing...director asks him to take a break and in that break Motorokr features are shown and then coming back to movie on the death bed...dat sequence I described above. Now go and check out the link above for the advt. Its good. Motorola has been coming out with some real good ads recently which I personally feel have been amongst the best which any handset company has come out with.....good going...so now Motorola is back in race along with Nokia and Sony Ericsson....

Its Time

2007-03-23T06:47:00.000+05:30

The

2006-11-22T08:58:00.000+05:30

Well last evening was the day when I got finally cleared and relieved from my first ever company as a full time employee after resigning on 7th Nov 2006....after spending 18 months there....

So this every much implies a completely fresh start......move to a new city....a new co. .... new set of colleagues....THE CHANGE....

Still no clue whether its for better or not.....but I hope generally change occurs for better....

Now eagerly looking forward to that drive from Chennai to Bangalore....thats some highway....gaining high speeds on it will be very very tempting....mazaa aayega...

So in next two days the packing needs to start....post reaching the destination a new house needs to be found....needs to be setup....ah dats a difficult task hehehe....then hmmmm maybe a TV and home theatre system......man how much can one demand......hahahaa

Anyways.....the phase 3 of this blog begins....and the journey continues........
Phase 1: Started in B School....continued all through into the 1st Job (Phase 2) and now the journey begins into phase 3......

Rock n Roll cant stand still

2006-09-19T10:27:00.000+05:30

After a real real long time.....today morning....felt like having a nice headbanging session...the first song coming to mind....HEAVY FUEL by Dire Straits....
the lyrics are awesome....toooo cooolll....

here they come:

Heavy Fuel by Dire Straits:
---------------------------

Last time I was sober, man I felt bad
Worst hangover that I ever had
It took six hamburgers and scotch all night
Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right
cos if you wanna run cool
If you wanna run cool
If you wanna run cool, you got to run
On heavy, heavy fuel

My life makes perfect sense
Lust and food and violence
Sex and money are my major kicks
Get me in a fight I like dirty tricks
cos if you wanna run cool
Yes if you wanna run cool, you got to run
On heavy, heavy fuel

My chick loves a man whos strong
The things shell do to turn me on
I love the babes, dont get we wrong
Hey, thats why I wrote this song

I dont care if my liver is hanging by a thread
Dont care if my doctor says I ought to be dead
When my ugly big car wont climb this hill
Ill write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill
cos if you wanna run cool
If you wanna run cool
Yes if you wanna run cool, you got to run
On heavy, heavy fuel

Highwaystar on a Roll........

2006-05-03T10:27:00.000+05:30

Five months into 2006....what all has happened.....

Kicked it off with the first day being spent in Pondicherry.....and I think that set the tone for the year.....

What a tone sensex from 9K level is now comfortably above 12K levels whoa and still going strong....

What a tone.....have not rested yet and rest seems far far away.....

From Pondicherry - The coastline in the deeper southern region of India having really beautiful beaches till the Mighty Himalayas - Vaishno Devi and Patni Top in Jammu.

Have also been to Ooty, Coorg and then back home and now plannin on to Goa, Kodaikanal, Kerala and a couple of wildlife sanctuaries around in South India.

Not to mention trips to Bangalore keep happening....

Going off to Pune-Nasik-Mumbai in 2 weeks and the 3 places in 2 days :D

Its been a roller coaster ride till now....and the year surely seems to just have started.....

My camera sure has been njoin itself to the max - check it out here

Pondicherry - the trip was a roadtrip - took East Coast Road from Chennai to Pondicherry on 31st Decemeber'2k5 to eneter into the new year at Pondicherry.The road runs just next to the beautiful coastal line which Tamil Nadu seems to enjoy...this is where I managed to get a maximum speed till date out of my car - the speed being 155 Kmph....it can do more than that - it is waitin for more.....Visit Pondicherry between October and February and you can spend your time playing or lazying around on the Beach. The beaches there r really beautiful and dats wat u can call perfect setting for playing in the water.....else mostly the beaches along the eastern coast of India are very rough....

Next trip was to Vaishno Devi and Patni Top in J&K in February'06 with parents and my yunger bro. It was my first time to these two places and Vaishno Devi is such an amazing place, it takes you to a completely different world. Had darshan thrice there and then went ot Patni Top. The best thing about Patni Top is - ITS CALM AND BEAUTIFUL. No noise. Not much to see there only enjoy the scenery around you. Where else can you find such a nice place to get away from the daily chores and noisy city life.

In April'06, went to Ooty with my XIM-B friends. It was for just one night, but was fun. Though must say Ooty is no more an ideal hill station, people flock there like crazy....though worth a visit once. The ooty lake is really gud, one should go there boating only in the evening time, thats when you will enjoy it the most with the setting sun. The tea gardens cover Ooty and it looks awesome :)

Again in April'06, went to Coorg with my cousins who are in Bangalore. This was during the weekend when Bangalore was closed courtesy death of an actor. Managed to reach Bangalore - what a journey it was, bus stopped at Hosur and there we had to wait and see how to go to Bangalore. Well some Karnataka buses were started and on then reached Bangalore. On the route to Coorg, one has to go on Bangalore-Mysore highway. This highway is still under construction but once its made it will be really good - I think the best thing Karnataka govt can do. Coorg has an awesome weather. The very first night it rained there. We had stayed directly in the middle of a coffee estate and very near to Nagerhole wildlife sanctuary :). We went to Wayanad wildlife sanctuary the very first evening. We could not spot a tiger or leopard or panther in 3 journeys through the wildlife sanctuaries. Two times through Nagerhole and once through Wayanad. Next time will have to work out something to reach to the core of the forest where the action happens. These two sanctuaries also have a major problem - they dont provide jeeps, they provide big vans to enter into the forest and in these big groups go, which make a lot of noise, as if these vans r silent. Also the jeeps are permitted to go, but visitors have to make there own arrangements. Again these vehicles make a lot of noise. The sanctuaries should provide their own low noise making jeeps and huge groups in vans should not be be permitted. We also went to Kushalnagar Monastery. It is supposed to be the second biggest one in India and it was amazingly beautiful. A must visit for anyone going to Coorg.

Last I have come back from my Home - Delhi......the city simply rocks :D

Lets see where am I off to next.....in two weeks I will be in Chennai - Pune - Nasik - Mumbai - Chennai in 2 days flat :D

and have to scout for where next after that....

India Wins and am off to Ooty

2006-03-31T17:38:00.000+05:30

Heeehawwww

Dis time ye another yungster does it....Suresh Raina dis it for us....

From a seriusly bad situation he and Dhoni came to the rescue...

Finally India leads 2-0 to England.... :)

Well now am off to Ooty for short trip....

ciao everyone...back on Sunday evening :)

The Rising Sun

2006-03-30T11:49:00.000+05:30

Finally got a chance to see the sunrise in Chennai standing on the beach :)after almost ten months of stay here...

Today morning after picking up 2 of my XIM-B friends from station we headed straight to the Besant Nagar beach (Elliot's Beach) to view the sun rise.

Have seen loads of sun sets and clicked loads of dem....but catching a gud sunrise is very difficult.....this was a gud one but not perfect.

For more pics click here

Remembering those Wonderful Days

2006-03-22T19:18:00.000+05:30

Been just over a year since I left XIM-B (actually 1 year and 1 week)

That was my first experience of living away from home and living on campus in hostel....

Have made many frnds and couple of close frnds for life out there....have had loads of fun @ campus.....

No way will I forget those days of sitting late night study or project work and spending the whole time doin just bakkar....playing tennis late into the nights.....my non stop stream of caffeine....goin to canteen at 1 am or 2 am for something to satiate the hunger (which normally arises always wen u think of doin a project or think of studying), also post tennis game going to mess for masala cola (AT 4 AM!!!!!!!!)

Blasting of that hard rock music from my speakers well complemented with someone trying to listen to soft hindi music somewhere on the campus.......

"JUST LIKE THAT" - the night wen XIMB turned into a disc....and went dancing all night.....

Well anyone observing us wud have kept on thinking......do these guys sleep or not.....to see that he wud have to attend the class and try to find the junta there trying to catch sleep - with everyone having their unique way......

Wat fun it was.....truly "THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"

Miss those days.....miss everyone there....

Hoping (actually dreaming) abt living those days once again.....

BSE almost kissing 10K mark

2006-01-30T10:34:00.000+05:30

Well well well today morning - stock markets open and BSE is at 9915.94 (up 45 points)....

Will the market breach thru the 10K mark today or not...lets wait and see....till then HAPPY INVESTING AND PROFIT MAKING....

2006-01-25T17:20:00.000+05:30

At the stroke of 9:30 AM on 26th January'2005,
When the whole of the Indian working junta will be lying in their beds - resting....

I will be in office.....

Well wat to say...it happens...

Rang de Basanti releasing.....need to watch it....

As of now two must watch releases have been....Bluffmaster and Zinda....

Bluffmaster truly is gud bluffy movie.....u need to see it to believe it....Priyanka Chopra truly looking really pretty in this movie....(actually should say...she is growing prettier in every movie she does...)Aby's baby....has been on a roll and has delivered in this movie too,......and his song...well its amazing....

As for Zinda.....Sanjay Dutt...has done a terrific job....he just fits the role he did....no one could have been there only Sanjay Dutt....After a real long time...a gud action movie has come on screen....gud action sequesnces.....ok its a lift off of a Korean movie...but still must say gud stuff.....though it gets a bit gory with all the bloodshed....

njoin life....and dats all for now.... :)

Run "FEAST" on a "DEAD" Pitch

2006-01-16T17:23:00.000+05:30

They say its a dead pitch @ Gaddafi Stadium....
Batsmen say "I'm Lovin it"
Bowlers asking for a back massage.....

Its been a run feast for both the sides....

Pak 679/7 declared....
With a pace battery they have it was thought India might have to follow on....but but but....

Dravid and Viru opened the innings for india on the second day and with only 15 overs being bowled on third day, they were still holding ground on the play close for the 4th day with the score at 403/0 - lets see whether this is going to reach the highest opening partnership or not....the manner in which they are going it certainly seems more fireworks are on offer for tomorrow...

Dravid: 128 - The Wall is standing solid...no one can go through him right now...
Sehwag: 247 - An still kicking some serious butt....
and to top it all - its all at a run rate of around 5.2 or 5.3 and believe it or not - this is test match.....

Viru might be thinking of his last triple century when he was in Pakistan last time around....he might be wanting to better it and maybe go for a 400 on his own....

Awaitin more fireworks tom...but hoping other pitches have not been made in a similar fashion - need some real gud cricket between these two great cricketing nations..... :)

Also a Belated Birthday to "The Wall" - Rahul Dravid.....

2005-12-23T09:34:00.000+05:30

My latest acquisition.....sheer power and force....and speed...."Highwaystar" is now truly a Highwaystar. The car is "Opel Corsa Sail - 1.6" Feature list - 1598 CC and develops 91 bhp at 5600 revs and 12.6 kgm at 3200 rpm. Blaupunkt CD system with Sony Xplod Oval speakers in rear and two pre-fitted from speakers - fully loaded.....or should I say Overloaded....

November Rain

2005-11-25T18:13:00.000+05:30

"And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain"

Well Chennai has been experiencing this cold rainfall all throughout the month of November.

And its been actually cold - fans have been used minimally - aha low electricity bill.....

Great weather to spend time on the beach. Thats what I have been doing too.....

Can the weather remain like this - only the rains should not happen......cool breeze and little sunshine.....wow.....

What a life....

2005-11-22T18:25:00.000+05:30

Rains rains and more rains.....it just does not seem to stop here....no fans reqd. at night....now that is what I had not heard happening in Chennai....but it is.....

Rains happen when you don't want them to.....TODAY WAS SUPOSED TO BE A CRICKET MATCH BETWEEN INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA and it got abandoned due to rain.....

But one good thing.....Laloo raj ends in Bihar.....

Life getting way too hectic....was it supposed to be like this after MBA....maybe....

But alas...now can only listen to the lines "Those were the best days of my life" from the song "Summer of '69" and recall the days gone by....

Feel like just going for a short holiday.....to some hill station - this being the perfect weather.....

2005-11-18T18:17:00.000+05:30

The pic taken from plane while going to Delhi. More pics on at www.snapshotsfromheaven.blogspot.com

Diwali 2005

2005-11-01T16:38:00.000+05:30

Wishing all of you a Very happy and Prosperous Diwali

Have a great time....

Loads of fun....

and just pure Rock n Roll....

Chennai - The city so changed....

2005-10-26T09:40:00.000+05:30

Well....
People said come October rains arrive in Chennai....

Well what they said was truth and only truth...

But with the kind of rains which are being seen here they are also amazed.

The climate here in Chennai is just amazing....its cool and pleasant - slight drizzle going on.....

Overall a perfect weather to go to the beach and play football in water.

Want to do that....But..........

First footsteps in Stock Market......(updated)

2005-10-20T15:55:00.000+05:30

Events Yesterday.....
- Stock Market down by over 100 points. Goes below 8000 mark for first time after 9th Sept'05
- A certain Mr. Gaurav Gupta (happens to be myself) sees it as an opportunity to invest
- So the first ever dealing on my ICICI Direct account happens.
- Buy the stock. AHH a decent size of amount from my salary account gets transferred to trading acconut and gets invested.
- The stock is on a rise defying the falling market.

Events today.....
- Markets open strong, over 100 points high than yesterday.
- Keeps going high, coincidentally my stock also reaches day high (and i just keep holding it)
- Market starts fluctuating, same behavior depicted in my stock
- Market goes down again and again and again (by around 116 points) and my stock also goes down.......
- Market starts recovery, but is still below yesterday's mark, my stock is still
fluctuating, but I know it will be back.....

Feel like purchasing more....but don't want to invest more money atleast for now.....trying on reinvesting the already invested money over and over again.

Wishing it a speedy recovery and hoping my stock comes back to normal and goes on a speedy rise.......

This article gives hope.

Update: Booked my first loss in one of the two investments made and moved on to third stock after selling first. Hoping to get the right mix asap...

The SE7EN things......

2005-09-14T11:45:00.000+05:30

Well got tagged courtesy Arun. So here it goes....THE SE7EN THINGS......

Se7en things I plan to do before I die

Explore the world's best beaches, forests and other nature's offerings
Give back to society (not decided how)
Get my name published in an International Photography mag for Nature Photography
Have my own house - to my taste
Try as many kind of different dishes as possible
BUY a MERC - sports stylo
Enjoy Life to the Max

Se7en things that I can do

Get a Maruti to start with
Can Xplore exotic locations within India
Enjoy South Indian food - in true form
Make more friends
Get more Sleep
Get a PDA Phone
Create a portfolio of photos I click

Se7en things I can’t do

Believe politicians
Live without embracing technology
Stop praising beauty
Stop cracking PJ's
Stop travelling
Self praise
Live without friends

Se7en things that attract me to the opposite sex

Eyes
Smile
Intelligence
Long hair
Sense of humor
Simplicity with Elegance
The way she carries herself

Se7en things I say most

Abey oye
Shit
Hmmm
Wat da ....
Dekhte hein
Wwwwaaazzzzuuuupppp
Ki haal chaal

Se7en celebrities I wish to meet

Julia Roberts
Aamir Khan
Rahul Dravid
Priety Zinta
Tom Cruise
Sunil "Bharti" Mittal
Richard Branson

Se7en people I am tagging

John
Saurabh
Maloy
Sujan
Sarita
Shub
Whirlwings

Yet another weekend passes by.....

2005-09-05T16:43:00.000+05:30

With this weekend gone - 3 months in office also got over.... :)

Well.....Its back to office with Monday...which incidentally always has to come after Sunday....why cant we have Saturday Sunday Sunday Saturday....and then Monday.

It would have been so much fun that ways.

Well realized one thing....how much one tries to control the expenditure - the more it happens.....

Anyways it was quite an action packed weekend....

Friday night - Dinner plus movie.
On Friday went off to see NO ENTRY.....amazingly non stop hilarious movie....which will make you keep clapping and laughing non-stop. good plot and really well connected story line. Must say....great work at editting. 3 Actors 4 Actresses and they can make you roll on your stomach.....awesome fun.....will not reveal the plot....just go ahead and see the movie.

Saturday had some work with Bank and then went for lunch and then a yet another movie - Stealth. Well watch it if you wanna see a US Stealth Bomber - which is unmanned (has AI) get all senti and in the end go ahead and give its life to save a human. WOW!!!! What a story - only Americans can think of all this bullsh*t.

Sunday did nothin much....cleaning of house - resting and then went out for dinner.

Was a good weekend.....

Would say am enjoying it here in Chennai now....its not that bad a city as people make it sound to be. It can be fun....u just need to settle down here - make a good gang of frnds....or u may already have it....then you can just chillout....The only thing lacking here is - great climate.....we can adjust to that courtesy human designed and manufactured A/Cs......

Today moved into the new office - shift in office building happened - moved to the dead office building....with rest of the Management Trainee gang now.....still adjusting to the new environment - but from now on things look great....

Its that time of the week yet again....

2005-09-02T18:22:00.000+05:30

Hello all,
Finally its a Saturday followed by a Sunday - which means - HOLIDAY....

Such a relief after 12 days of non-stop work....

Straight from office am off for dinner....with friends....
My god....while this month expenses have been on a high BUT I haven't been....need to go to ATM...

Last night also talked to a pretty old frnd of mine....after some real long time...
feels great....

Its dat time of the week again....

Also realized next month in October 3 days of holidays coming which can be extended to 4 days....hopefully some plan can be made.....need to go into the wild....close to nature and try out my hand at photography....need to get used to my new cam....
need to bring out more beautiful snaps.....create a portfolio for some work after the age of 40 (hopefully by then I will have some great bank balance so that I can simply pursue my hobby - its a Dream - hoping they come true.....)

Lastly.....people having high expectations.....hopefully will be able to deliver.....

Eclipsed.....

2005-08-31T13:44:00.000+05:30

The picture shows the current feeling inside me.....

hmmmm....like the Sun coming out of the dark, with the week taking a turn today on Wednesday, with the Saturday being off....and Sunday being a hol (under normal circumstances)...things look bright coupled with some other happenings which cannot be mentioned here.... :)

"AM LOVING IT"

Need a break...need to rest.....

Feel like going to some place around Chennai....its been a really longtime since I moved out of Chennai for some short weekend break or even a single day outing will do wonders....

BUT, courtesy last weekend expenditure - a pain to wallet which was further aggravated on Monday due to a silly mistake....I think will have to live like a real Baniya for some time....(am a Baniya - but money generally keeps slipping away from my hands)

The weather looks good outside....but till when will it be like this....
Hoping it rains today....

Such weather reminds of Bhubaneswar days - the day it used to be hot, it had to rain that evening, but here, only one part is true - the day is hot - in evening it may or may not rain. Probability of rains is pretty low.

Have heard that October - December, Chennai receives decent amount of rains....lets see how decent is considered decent here.

Started reading up a new book - "Brand Portfolio Strategy" by Aaker after finishing off with "The Tipping Point"

Thats how the evening time passes by.....

Still have to see Mangal Pandey and with the kind of reviews No Entry is getting will have to see that also....

So....in the world of cricket....why was Rahul Dravid stripped of captaincy when Ganguly joined the team....Ganguly a person...whose cricketing days are over....got reinstated as a captain....

After loss to New Zealand, Ganguly did have guts to say that Batsmen should contribute more.....what is he....he is a captain....he should lead by setting an example.....

Today in advertising world, for a change our cricketers are less and less to be seen....hopefully they will now concentrate on their play....

On Sunday - Posting from Office

2005-08-28T12:34:00.000+05:30

Well in 3 months of my work life....its my first Sunday when I am in office - DOING WORK.....

Morning went out for breakfast with XIMB friends to Spencer's Plaza. Its so good meeting up with close friends after pretty long time....

And now here I am....in office....DOING WORK....

It looks so deserted....till now I have been able to count 4 people working here, but none in my department.....its so deserted.....with all the cubicles....and the machines lying around with none to talk to....no noise (shor gul)....which is so characteristic in normal routine....

But one good thing...tomorrow I will not be complaining about those "MONDAY MORNING BLUES"....
SO this weekend spent in office....

Don't feel like going out at this hour...this Chennai climate has changed back to NORMAL - Its HOT and HUMID..... [atleast its not HOTTEST]

Another achievement - I have not run away to Bangalore for my second consecutive weekend.

Searching for some more good places around Chennai where we can go out for some weekend outing - with Mahabalipuram being the nearest one [50Kms].

Some more interesting hoardings have been sighted - without company's name - like in one of my previous posts. One of them says "Earlier I used to do it alone, now he also loves to do it"

More such ads have been seen and will be updating more lines as and when I recall them.

Seen pasted on a Reliance mobile scheme poster a Special Airtel Offer of Rs. 99/- [making full use of available space on Reliance Poster [pasted properly - hiding the Reliance Scheme]]

On the last count in the park behind my house saw 8 deers feasting on grass [not the drug kinds] and other plants- they look so beautiful - will try to click them soon after I get a tripod - will have to use zoom and slow shutter speed since they come there in late evening.

What else.....

One of my roomie leaving of for Bangalore with change in Job....why do people have to leave when you just start to get settled and are enjoying your stay together.

What else.....

In the evenings I am reminded of Deep Purple's song - Burn:
"The sky is Red, I can't understand,
Past midnight I can still see the land"
[though midnight can be removed - its late evenings and sometimes the sky looks amazingly beautiful.]

Google on a Roll........

2005-08-24T16:06:00.000+05:30

Aha Google is BACK....and dat too with a BANG....

Heee Haaawwww...

Beware Microsoft Beware Yahoo....
You have no clue where Google is going, whom google is targetting.
I should also say.....Beware Skype....

Now does that indicate anything.....

Well well well.....
Google has brought out its own messenger by name of Google Talk.

Try it once and you will like it.

Not at all heavy on ur PC resources, simple and elegant and also has voice chat feature.

All that in the first messenger they launched.

What would the world have been had Google not have existed.

It is slowly entering into everything we do on a PC and scaring the existing players to take desperate actions big time.

Lets see how Microsoft and Yahoo react to this launch.

As usual Google has gone in for a soft launch and am sure is piggybacking on its huge GMail membership for getting as many users for its IM as possible. And its an excellent idea. When you login into the messenger you get your GMail address list and you can invite anyone from them to join the Google Talk irrespective of whether they are GMail users or not....and this inviting is at maximum 3 to 4 steps process which you can just click through.

What would a life be without GOOGLE.....

Currently:
GOOGLE for search
GOOGLE for blog
GOOGLE for mail
GOOGLE for chat
GOOGLE for maps
GOOGLE for news
GOOGLE for sharing photos
GOOGLE for toolbar
GOOGLE for wen accelerator
GOOGLE for translation
GOOGLE for desktop search

Future:
GOOGLE for OS
GOOGLE for internet browser

That would be a dream come true......Microsoft will then face some real competition.....

The Hogenakal Trip.....(updated)

2005-08-16T12:04:00.000+05:30

Saturday, Sunday and Monday......was a good break. An extended weekend. Had gone to Bangalore for this weekend. Reached there on Saturday and stayed there with my cousins. That day we spent in Bangalore itself. In the evening we went to a pub there called Legends of Rock. Hmmmmm after such a long time...got to listen to some real good rock music and at a good volume. After having drinks there we went off to a restaurant nearby called "Chandni Chowk". A must go place. Lovely decor. And good food - must have: Makai ki Roti and Saag. But do not try Kulfi there. It is avoidable.

The next morning we left for "Hogenakal". It is a small place in Tamil Nadu. Located in a wildlife sanctuary it features beautiful set of waterfalls. "Hogenakal" means smoking rock. And thats what it looks from distance with all the mist/small water droplets being carried by the wind. From distance it just looks as if smoke is rising from the rocks - but when you go near to the scene is awesome. Another good thing about this waterfall is.....you can experience the please/scare of living (better to say standing) on the edge.....the feeling is scary BUT AWESOME at the same time. During this month (August) the river Kaveri is flowing with some overdose of water creates amazing waterfalls in this region. The water in this area is known for its curative powers. This is one place one should visit if he/she is in Bangalore or Chennai. Another intersting thing to experience here is the boat ride - IT'S DIFFERENT. The boats are circular in shape and made up of Bamboo with tarpaulin outside so that water does not enter the boat. This boat though you will not believe is amazingly strong. Another fun thing you can do in this boat is, make it rotate at pretty good speeds and we experienced it. This is also a good place to go for trekking. We returned from there in late evening and saw the sunset happening on the way back. Looks truly amazing with small hills around the Hosur Road.We went straight for dinner to a restaurant. The place is truly amazingly beautiful....well this is the place where the song "Ek Chhoti si" in the movie Roja was picturised.

The next day was spent resting at home in Bangalore. Cousin bro arranged for my ticket for the night journey back to Chennai by bus. My bus started around 10:30 PM from Bangalore and reached Chennai at 6:00 AM. Sleeping in bus is the most difficult thing. From next time I will try for train tickets for going to Bangalore. And without sleep, got ready and came to office....

Hoping for more such trips into such beautiful spots.

Some of the pics of Hogenakal can be found here

Last evening.....and off to Bangalore yet again.....

2005-08-12T16:01:00.000+05:30

Saw a hoarding last evening having a beautiful female model in standing pose and it spoke loud the line "I used to have it once a week, and now I am having it almost daily". Nothing else was mentioned....who had put that hoarding is unknown to me. But, seems they have been inspired by DNA advertising through hoardings in all over Mumbai.....but atleast it was known that DNA had those hoardings. Imagine, a kid asking his parents what does that sentence mean when he sees that hoarding while going to someplace with parents. Where is the advertising going to. As once said "Sex Sells"...so all advertisers and marketers are making use of this so very effective tool to sell anything and everything under the sun.

Last night our senior batch (previous years Management Trainees) in the company am working in gave us a dinner party. It was at a Pub cum Restaurant - BASERA on the East Coast Road. The ambience there is really good.It has both open air and A/C room seating available. We decided to have an Open Air dinner (weather was good and there were no Mosquitoes). We were a total of 13 who had gone there for dinner.If I comment on dinner then I cannot do justice to it. This is because most of us non-veggies were so over-whelmed with the taste of Chicken Lollipop that we had an over-dose of starters. Starters also included Reshmi Kebab and Tandoori Chicken. Mouth starting to water again. After that we also finished of a plate of Chilli Prawns in a straight go. And then was the time for the main course. We ordered main course for sure - but soon after it was served we realized that we have had an over load of starters. We were unable to finish it all off. But should say, it was a good change from the normal food we have for dinner here in Chennai. Must say food was good, but the whole ambience of the place was even better.

After dinner we went of to one of the senior batchmates home since one of them had a birthday today. At the stroke of the mid-night the cake was cut and the Birthday Girl was duly wished with the cake on the face ceremony taking place. Then, Beer and SMIRNOFF Vodka (yeah not Romanov - which is found in Chennai and Smirnoff is real difficult to find here) along with Sprite, Orange Juice and Tomato juice. We all had a nice bakar session till late into the night. Some of us slept there only.

Well since I have to go of to Bangalore today night, I had to do some packing and some clothes washing so had to wake up Arun early in the morning (6:13am) to drop me home.As of now I am sitting in office and had washed clothes in the morning have to reach home asap and pack my bags and rush to Chennai Central Railway Station from where I have to catch my Bus to Bangalore. Don't get confused buses do not run from Railway Station but from the travel agents place opposite the Railway Station. Lets see after reaching Bangalore where do we go. Third weekend consecutively in Bangalore. Saturday, Sunday and Monday heeehaawwww are HOOOLLLLIIIDDDAAAYYYYYSSSSS.........

Hoping to make good use of my new cam in this trip.

My Dream.....Smile Ready CLICK!!!!!!!

2005-08-09T16:10:00.000+05:30

WELL WELL WELL JUST CAN'T TELL.....
I have to announce it.... :D

Finally, yesterday I laid my hands on my dream cam....which I had been eyeing for past two months....

Presenting to you: Canon EOS 350D Digital SLR cam.....
Following is the pic of the cam:

It comes with a Canon 28-55mm Lens as part of the kit. In addition to that lens I purchased a tele lens also - 75-300mm Canon EF Lens.

Camera looks same as the one shown in the above pic.....I went for a all black body.
For the additional lens which I bought following is the pic:

Along with it to start of I have bought 512MB Flash Card and by the year end have to get 2GB microdrive hopefully....

To start with, this is a good photography kit...hoping to make the best use of it....right now getting the hang of the camera. Finding out all its functions. I hope to be soon out and clicking....and hoping to get my photoblog active soon.

Drive to Bangalore.....

2005-08-08T16:51:00.000+05:30

Firstly, Wishing everyone a Belated Happy Friendships Day, since I could not come online yesterday to leave across a message.

Well am back from Bangalore. It was a official tour but then a good change. The weather there was amazing. In my past two visits to that city - I have had a chance to get drenched. But this time around the weather remained on the cooler side without any rains only occasional drizzle (u cannot call them a drizzle also).

Spent four days there - from Thursday to Sunday. We started straight from office after lunch in car around 1 pm on Wednesday. The distance is around 341 Kms if Old Madras Road is taken which goes via Chittoor. We had taken this road and covered the distance in around 6 hours and 30 minutes with one break in between - for snacks. We entered Bangalore at 7:20 PM. This I think is a good enough time to cover this much of distance. The road for first 50 Kms or so is still under construction, so initially we were pretty slow, but after that the road becomes much better and its a very comfortable ride to Bangalore. Actually faster than train. After having snacks I drove the car upto the outskirts of Bangalore. After such a long time - after 2 and a half months I was driving a car.....WOW.....

The road passes through three states - Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It also passes through an Elephant Reserve, where we did not see any Elephants but saw loads of monkeys. The scenery at some points was absolutely amazing, especially during sunset and when some light drizzle had happened. Will be putting a couple of pics after transferring from my mobile.

In Bangalore I stayed with my cousin bhaiyya and bhabhi. You can imagine the climate of the city from the fact that we did not need to switch on fans the whole day. On Thursday and Friday we did our work. After that we got the weekend free.

When out on the road and roaming in and around the city, the cool breeze is the best thing to feel - and that is what Banaglore gives you almost whole day!!!!!!!! How can people living in Bangalore adjust to any other city where they cannot get a similar climate.

During the stay we ate at a place called "Little Italy". Its an Italian joint there and the food there is good, the pizza crust was refreshingly different from the Pizza Hut's - fresh or stale crust whatever. As a matter of fact I was initially thinking that this place is called "Little Idli" - whats happening to me!!!!!!

Also after such a long time I had good Chhole Bhatoore at Bombay House.

Another mission for which I went to Bangalore was to get a Digitial SLR camera - Canon EOS350D. Found a great shop - Camera Citi, but the camera was out of stock at this shop. Still no problem - its main office is luckily in Chennai, and is supposed to be one of the biggest Indian camera dealers. Will be going there today to see whether I can get the camera now or not.

Well, another beautiful place to visit in Bangalore is the Leela Palace on Airport road. Its really beautiful. The garden was amazingly well landscaped - with waterfall and a small cave. DEFINITELY LEELA!!!

We also saw a movie at Innovative Multiplex. The movie was The Island. Its a movie which is basically trying to be futuristic and tell viewers what might happen if human cloning starts and becomes commercialized. The topic is good, but depiction definitely not. Well its a movie you may watch when ur totally vella but not when you have other options of movies.

We left Bangalore at around 5:50PM and it was supposed to be a night drive. I was home at 12:30 am or so which again means we covered the distance at a good speed with one break.

After long time I went on highway drive (actually after first week of March when I had gone on Gangtok Trip with XIMB friends).

Now I might again be going to Bangalore or some place near to it on the next weekend which is going to be an extended holiday with 15th August - India's Independence Day coming on Monday giving us Saturday, Sunday and Monday as holiday....WOW....Yipppeeee!!!!!

Hoping to go on that trip with the new camera - if I am able to get it today.....

Bangalore is becoming like a second home for me!!!!!

As the Weekend passes by (Updated)

2005-08-01T18:44:00.000+05:30

Yet another week passes by and 2 months up in job. Wow I have survived two months and am still enjoying the job. Not many would say that. Lucky me ;-)

Well the weekend went by really well.....Saturday was yet another Saturday Night Fever....u can say a mini bachelors party...loads of masti non stop....it was a drunken revelry at best :D ;-)

And the best thing was the next day dad was supposed to come to my place and everything had to be set right. This task was handled with care and necessary cleaning up activity was carried out and successfully. It was great meeting him and this is for all the XIMBians reading this and who r in Chennai - "ghar se khaana aaya hai" come over.....

Am leaving for Bangalore on Wednesday afternoon. Yet Again!!!!!

Am eagerly waiting for purchasing my camera - the CANON EOS350D Digital SLR Camera. Haven't been able to go to market for a long time. But since am going to Bangalore am hoping to strike a good deal there. So Bangalore ki junta help me.....tell me where r good camera shops there who can give good deals do name smoe and tell where they are. Life feels so empty without a camera in hand....one hobby I wanna seriously pursue....my photoblog is feeling ignored. "Somebody, somebody help me"

Well over the last week a lot has been happening. Imagine in a day news channels had to cover three big reports - Mumbai floods, Gurgaon incident and Bombay High fire. Later on militant attack on Srinagar and also a attempted militant attack on Delhi. hoping things get better for this country soon. Since the year start one calamity after another is striking this country. And when will US of A realize that striking the root of all problems atleast minimizes the problem to manageable extent.

Now I will be blogging back after coming from Bangalore.

UPDATE: Well beat it...I went to see the movie "Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya" for the second time....I know its not worth that respect....but its better to go and see it with friends than sitting at home and doing nothing much....yeah its better to watch Katrina Kaif and Sushmita Sen than idling away to glory at home....

Night Time, Rock Show and Heavy RAINS!!!!!

2005-07-25T17:59:00.000+05:30

As I am writing this blog, its raining pretty heavily outside.Chennai has been having amazing climate for last five days continuously. Sun has not shown its face.

Well weekend was amazing. Saturday evening....along with two friends I went for a Rock Show here in Chennai. Izaz was performing there. The band was good, nice smooth guitar works and most importantly - it was very different. It is a group from UK but having origin in Pakistan. The crowd was good [well that is understood ;-) ]. The show was going on fine and got better when rains started. Though thye show had to be stopped due to heavy rains. Still we waited there without any cover and got completely drenched in Chennai rains. Night Time, Rock Show and Heavy Rains - are a deadly combi. Fun to the max. I just love it. I love all the three things....so when got a chance to experience all three together so how could I not resist waiting there. All in all it was a SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.

Now coming back was also quite a experience in itself. With rain showing no respite, we were forced to go out of the Open Air Theatre to the road in search of auto-rickshaw. Backed solidly by heavy rains and lack of availability of empty autos, the auto charges went soaring up - touching Rs. 100/- which we were not willing to pay for an auto -who in the world would be willing to pay that much for a Rs. 30/- ride. Again we spent around an hour on the road. Well - best was when there came another group - were forced to come out of shade since rain was not stopping and the young lady in their group came out to look for the auto - followed by two of her guy friends. She was determined to get the auto before we got. And alas she succeeded - she might have even got a good bargain, courtesy my friend (we 3 were guys) who was trying to get the auto was not that attractive ;-). Life is so biased against guys na.....

Then we decided to try to get the auto from the other side. Crossed and went on to the other side - to the Pizza Corner - we were all drenched and were in half mind whether to go in for a bite or not - courtesy the AC which was switched on inside. After waiting for auto for a real long time - we decided to go in and try and sit only to come out - WE WOULD HAVE CHILLED - the Pizza Corner guys weren't willing to adjust the AC temperature.....Again the bargaining process starts.....and after seeing off around 6 autos we finally managed to get one at 6o bucks. WE HAD TO PAY THAT -we had to reach home. There was no way I could have gone home that day - so stayed at my friends place, had dinner there and went back in morning.

I just love rains, I just love rock music and now I got enlightened about Chennai - so I just love this city too.... :D

Sunday went off lazing around at home....had a breakfast cooked by us..."egg bhurji" and it was good. Then had a nice sound sleep in the afternoon and again for dinner went out with friends to Pizza Corner.

Weekend went off well....and the next day - following the usual "MONDAY MORNING BLUES" I got up late- though managed to reach office on time, and before leaving office here I am typing this post and its raining....yet again....

The Chennai climate right now is nothing close to what I had been told it is during this time of the year.

Am happy - Life Rocks....

Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya

2005-07-19T14:07:00.000+05:30

Well was in Bangalore this weekend.

Arey the mixup of the title and the above line can be very misleading. Am still single and was not meeting someone special in Bangalore.

Well had a great time in Bangalore. Met up with cousin bro n sis and many batchmates from XIMB. Its always great meeting up with old pals with whom one had spent 2 years in hostel. Also had great food - people going to Bangalore try out a restaurant - Angeethi near MG Road. Its really amazing and had really tasty Punjabi food there. Well weekends are time when there is absolutely no walking space in the two hot spots in Bangalore - M.G.Road/Brigade road and the Forum Mall. In Bangalore they really need to open more hep places to give the crowd living there more options to roam around and thus making these two places less cluttered. The city really needs to revamp its infrastructure big time. BUT, best part of stay were the two evenings which I spent there - it rained really heavily there - haven't experienced them yet in Chennai here and got drenched both days :D . Hoping someday a technology comes using which we can copy and paste the climate of one city over another - then we will copy and paste Bangalore's climate here in Chennai.

On Saturday saw the Salman Khan starrer - Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya. Well I can say only one thing - It's again a David Dhawan movie and he doesn't let you down. From start to end you will be laughing yourself out (TIP - Do not try to use your brains - and just incase if you have brains leave it at home or car or anywhere but leave it outside the hall). The whole hall was just laughing from start to end. In the very first scene itself, you are guaranteed to burst out. Sushmita Sen is again sizzling with and this time also in a Saree - she is looking amazing. Katrina Kaif thoroughly overshadowed by Sushmita's presence in the movie, still manages to make her presence felt - just by being there and just modelling arond with some acting. But she does look hot - but Sushmita sizzling hot - after all Katrina got chilled doing Just Chill. Yeah Katrina does look hot but needs to work on her acting a lot else she will just come in item numbers (JUST CHILL). That was a nice song and very well directed. The songs in the movie are good, the album can be bought. But go and watch it in a movie hall for once and have a great laugh - non stop - with the whole hall roaring. Sohail Khan gives bro Salman Khan a good competition - actually seems as if you are watching two Salman's acting. Well, movie has everything - great comedy [after a real long time] - Salman Khan [yet again topless - so females can have a yet another look] - Sushmita Sen and Katrina Kaif [Guys double treat for us all] - and all other great comedy actors playing their part really well.....

Its really sad that in some parts of the country the screening of the movie has been stopped and that too just by hearing of the tape - in which its not even sure whether the voice is of Salman Khan or not.

The life goes on.....

2005-07-14T15:05:00.000+05:30

Well have now realised how important "Wednesday" is.It is a day after which the week actually starts looking bright. And this is not for just single person, but for most of the people who are working or in School (not college or not doing MBA).

After Wednesday the week seems as if its shrinking. I suppose it is the day after which the productivity of personnel might be at its peak - because of the happiness that weekend is nearing (and here I am blogging - performance mein count nahin hota - but still....)

Anyways, the week had been hectic till now and still is. But still - work is interesting and this is in itself a motivation.

Have been pondering on a question - should I or shouldn't I - go for a car?
Its gonna be a big expenditure - initially thinking a second hand Esteen/Honda City and later on after 2 years when enough savings are there I should go for a new car. Lets see what I decide upon.

Today in market there are so many exciting hi-tech products and I feel like getting some of them asap - Canon EOS 350D (Digital SLR Cam) and a PDA Phone to start off with.

Have to explore Chennai also and some surrounding areas, but this weekend most probably am gonna land up in Bangalore.

Liking this city - its very mixed and hopefully its a trend happening. Mostly the city is conservative, but there are pockets where one can feel at ease. The people are nice, they try to understand you - there was time when auto wallahs would simply ignore you - not today - though they fleece u - but unlike what happens in Bangalore. Best thing is the cost of living is best for the person who is starting to earn. Loads can be saved. The best transport which I liked here has been Shared Auto concept and it is really amazing. In this the auto (bigger than normal ones) will not take only one person or small group, but will try to carry many other people on the route in which they operate. and will charge u a small fraction of total cost - which is fixed and thus no arguments. Also, the cost of pubbing is really low compared to other metros. The only grouse is the rains - when it rains here it is just small drizzle for 10 mins. Have heard it will rain here big time in retreating monsoons (October) - lets see [wait and watch for the update on that]. Also will keep on updating about the city as and when I experience anything more.

Another interesting stuff happening is how technology is making life difficult for celebs. The DPS - MMS was just a start. What followed has been more of invasion of privacy or use of technology for keeping oneself in news by celebs - one will never know this. There have been three mobile cam video recording leakages into media (public arena) - Kareena Kapoor and Shahid, then Riya Sen and now Mallika Sherawat (though it was not her in video but someone of close resemblance). So this is just a trend starting. Most mobile phones are now equipped with cams with video recording capability and the quality is good. It's now on us how we use technology. This has always been an issue with technology - is it bad or good - this depends on how we use it. And as technology advances making laws for their proper use becomes more and more difficult. We should adopt new technology (else how will people like me achieve targets) - but then we should use them not for invading someone's privacy or for any unsuitable purpose.

Thank God its Saturday

2005-07-09T15:09:00.000+05:30

wat to do...its saturday...sittin in office......working on projected cash flows...

waitin for evenin....wen i hope to GET FREE and tom is off....ONE DAY WEEKEND

People across the world say - TGIF - Thank God its Friday - but there are many people like me who say TGIS - Thank God its Saturday...........

aha finally weather in Chennai seems to be improving somewhat....i hope it stays like this for a long time.Yesterday, finally got drenched in the first major Chennai rains of this season - FINALLY - after a long time. It always feels so good getting drenched in rains. Miss those Bhubaneswar rains so much now. During this season rains were a regular feature there. Almost everyday and almost for whole day. Day in day out rains. Open the windows of ur room and u may very well wake up without the need for having a bath that day.

And today sun aint showing its face. The sky is cloudy, the climate is neither HOT/HOTTER/HOTTEST infact cool. Slept without switching on AC (cost cutting - baniya in action).

And what is happening this monsoons - heard that Delhi was under flood threat (on NDTV - one of the few channels here wich we can understand), Gujarat already bore the brunt, MP realing under it (rains for 5 days continuously finally stopped), rivers in Himachal Pradesh and J&K also overflowing big time (seen the shots in news channels - and its way too scary). Orissa will soon be under floods after a real hot season there. Freak snowfall happened in Himachal Pradesh (i think) - in this month.

Firstly Tsunami, then came heavy snowfalls (unprecedented), then extremes of heat and water problem, and now excess (too much) of water.....wat next from Nature's side. How much of Nature's fury will this country have to bear during this year.

Before monsoon session started the political parties got a major debating point - Ayodhya attacks and now no one knows will this session ever happen. BJP might this time around boycott until the Government takes the action which it demands - as L.K. Advani says - build the Ram Temple at the site and all the countries problems will be solved - even Terrorism. If it was all that easy, why the hell did not BJP do that in their rule and then they could have taken a credit for eliminating terrorism. Even US of A should co-operate with BJP - easiest way to bring terrorism to an end.

Thank God tomorrow is Sunday.... many friends here from XIMB...after a whole week will be meeting them and many more whom I have not met for a long time....

Shaking Dreams......

2005-07-08T09:18:00.000+05:30

On Reaching office at 8:15AM what better thing can describe the experience - the only thing coming to my mind is a Poem/Song byThe Doors - Awake. This is how they used to start there live performances normally...

It Goes on as follows:

"Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin.

Wake up!

You can't remember where it was
Had this dream stopped?

Awake

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see."

Ok am slowly adjusting to the timings now. But then am not comfortable sleeping of early.

And today or tomorrow hoping to get a huge speaker and sub-woofer set and have some head banging after some real long time. Its been ages since I have heard "Burn by Deep Purple" at full volume. The drum rolls and the guitar rolls - Ritchie is amazing toooooooo goooooood toooooo beeeeeee truuuuuueeeeeee on guitar. Even todays guitar god - Joe Satriani praises him.

Music whatever kind one is listening to does keep on giving the required momentum to ones life. Luckily my phone can keep some MP3s and play them really well...so that has been providing some respite.

and in the end with today being Friday - again The Doors - Break on through to the other side

"Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side"
AND THE CORPORATE RAINDANCE CONTINUES.........week on week, day on day hour on hour...with the coffee driving you through the day......

Still enjoying it till now.....hoping it stays the way its going or gets better....

All Marketers are Liars

2005-07-01T13:56:00.000+05:30

Hmmmm interesting...finally I decode my career...finally get to know what I have to keep on doing to be successful.... "All I have to do is lie"

Now thats where the catch is...

"Marketers aren't really liars, they are just really good at telling stories which customer wants to listen"-Seth Godin (in book - All Marketers are Liars"

There is a limitation to telling stories - Marketer MUST tell stories which matches with the viewpoint of his audience - else will the audience believe? NO and he fails.

This is how all these fairness creams are earning big time. They are selling you a story that you want to believe - see any advt. - most of these are today concentrating on girls getting jobs by using "XYZ Fairness Cream". This is a central story being used on our television. and are people buying it - YES.
End result, customer willingly fooled. Customer was made to accept a story which he/she would believe.

And from there the Book "The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big Difference" takes over the mantle.
Once the people start believing your stories, they will spread it on their own - "WORD OF MOUTH ADVERTISING" - The best thing which can happen to a product.

The Best example for this is the Apple iPod.
It wasn't the first MP3 player with hard disk available on the market. But its the product which now is earning Apple more money than its Macs. Why?
They had a simple product - concentrating on just small compact design, easy PC Connectivity and Good battery life. Today it has a whopping 65% market share in portable MP3 players and tooooo whopping 92% market share in hard disk based MP3 Players. It was launched in November 2001 and took over 1 and a half years to start on a path of success by clocking 1 million sales count. It took a real long time for that. But after that there was no stopping. Today it has crossed 6 million sales.

What made iPod a hit, while others could only just watch and actually could do nothing. Even Microsoft till date is only looking and doesn/t know what to do.
Here comes the marketer. Am sure the person who devised the marketing strategy for iPod should be a marketing god. Just look through any of the iPod advts. and you can see where they sold. Simplicity, small size-huge space and good battery life were onething. There were many who had similar or more offerings - Creative and Dell and many more. But then Apple positioned it as a "Must have Fashion Accessory" and this accessory was affordable for the targetted segment of students and young professionals.There was a coolness factor associated with it.

Steve Jobs rightfully says - iPod has become a cultural phenomenon.

Apple is depending a lot on Word of Mouth. Now iPod is more of a success because of the Network Effect - there is a huge iPod community which is growing and many more people wanna be a part of it - I ALSO WANNA HAVE ONE....maybe soon I will be an iPodder.

As one iPod user said: "It's a society within itself. You've got your biker community, your hip-hop community and now you've got your iPod community. It's all about those wires."

The essence of the communication from Apple was basically that you wear iPod and not own iPod. This made it an essential, just like you wear clothes.

So iPod continues to live on with its new offering iPod shuffle being a major success - even though there are competitors like Creative (also some other brands or non-brands) with products cheaper and having more features than iPod shuffle.

But then to this story telling there is a limitation - it should be authentic and in no way way should the marketer try to be a fraud.

Currently Reading: The Tipping Point
Plan to Read: All Marketers are Liars

Comments Changed

2005-06-30T13:02:00.000+05:30

Change is the only static thing in this world...

So commenting changed from haloscan to the blogger comments.. :-)

Mere saathh aisa kyun hota hai.....

2005-06-28T17:05:00.000+05:30

It happened in College
It happened when I went for MBA
It Happened yet again when I started working.....

dat makes it 4 + 2 + 1 month (almost)
Basically just over 6 year continuosly....

and wat is this "IT" in the above sentences.....
The "IT" stands for making of Plans to Kill me.

Though these plans have not yet materialised...(how could they ever)
Well....my ability to crack PJs or seriously pull someone's leg to extremes has led to this scenario. But, luckily I do it mostly with close friends....

But then its been fun for both sides....they miss what I did when we were together and same here I miss what I used to do....

When I meet up with old friends....esp. those who made plans....same plans r discussed...and the exact reason why that plan was made....

Ah SWEEEEEEEEEETTTTTT EEEMMMMMMOOOOOOOTTTTTIIIIOOOONNNNSSS
- sing it the way Aerosmith did

DID I EVER IMAGINE.....

2005-06-25T15:24:00.000+05:30

- People who know me will be amazed to see the daily schedule I now have. I never used to sleep at 11 PM...I just could not....there was no way I could wake up at 6am after sleeping at 4:30 AM....BUT guess what I am doing what I never imagined...

I AM WAKING UP AT 6 AM, SLEEPING AT 11 PM.

- There was a time, when Rock Music and Gaurav Gupta went hand in hand....where there was Rock music there was Highwaystar, or where there was Highwaystar there was Rock music.

AS OF TODAY, IT HAS BEEN AGES SINCE I HAVE HEARD "SMOKE ON THE WATER" AT THE HIGHEST VOLUME I COULD. :(

- Had any of my friends ever seen me having rice (in any form other than Chicken Biryani/Biryani)in XIMB. The answer will come as NO.

BUT THIS IS LIFE. ITS NEVER FAIR TO YOU. I AM HAVING RICE DAILY WITH SAMBHAR. BUT THEN GOOD THING IS THAT I ALSO GET TO EAT THE FRIED PAPADWHICH I REALLY LOVE.

-There was a time when I would be regularly coming out with too many pics from my digital camera

TODAY, I AM NOT CARRYING MY DIGITAL CAMERA, BUT INTENDING TO GET A PROFESSIONAL ONE SOON. HAVEN'T CLICKED ANY OF THE GREAT SNAPS I USED TO WHEN WAS IN CAMPUS

Change is truly the essence of life...
It was truly one big fun time while on campus. Miss those friends now.

But, then now that I am settled out here in Chennai, everything is getting into a smooth roll here, lets see wats in store now on....

MIT Bloggers Survey

2005-06-25T15:20:00.000+05:30

Take it.....

RAINS.....

2005-06-20T21:00:00.000+05:30

FINALLY, IT RAINED.....
Well....its been humid and fairly hot in this part of the country...but today evening sitting and working on a PPT....that particular amazing smell of mud - the smell which comes when it rains or is about to rain was quite prominent and then looking out of the window one could see the small droplets coming down which slowly increased in speed.....and by the time I realized it was raining.....finally the Monsoon showers happened.....Having stayed in Bhubaneswar for 2 years.....I was missing rain so much....It was then I realized that I don't have a car to go back home....so the best thing which came to my mind was - WHY NOT GET DRENCHED AND THEN REACH TO MY APARTMENT and I did just that....

I really love rains....I hope my coming to Chennai brings much more showers to this city. And tonight the weather seems pretty cool.....worth taking a walk or lazing around on balcony - Ah! those XIMB days....

Waitin for more rains....and right now fod waiting at home.....

Chennai Reports

2005-06-16T15:52:00.000+05:30

Back after a real long time. Now am in Chennai. Its real hot (not as hot as Delhi) but whats worse is that its way too humid. Trying to adjust to this climate.

Have joined the company and induction program is up. We were also taken to Bangalore as part of induction program. Bangalore climate is amazing. Now I know where to go when I need a break.

The first thing which can happen to anyone landing in Chennai was experienced very well by me. I paid Rs. 180/- for a taxi ride from Airport to my guest house - and the distance was only 5 - 6 kms. Moreover this fleecing was done by Pre-Paid Taxi Counter. What a start....

So now its final that the stay in Chennai is going to be a long one, so we are getting our house in order. Now waiting to get some time and roam around the place also. The biggest problem which will be faced now is Income Tax - need to minimize it for my Digital SLR Camera.

Rest all later.....

A New Step being taken tomorrow....

2005-06-02T13:05:00.000+05:30

Well come Friday the 3rd of June and I once again leave my home....ah the Paradise City of Delhi yet again.....but this time for Chennai. Last time when I left this city had gone to pursue MBA at XIM Bhubaneswar. This time its not studies but for a new phase - a phase where i start working for the first time. Let us see how this part of life kicks off. Will be meeting new people and some old friends who are already in Chennai. Am kind of excited to reach there - I think two and a half months spent lazing around after convocation does this to almost everyone. Will update later on after reaching Chennai.....and maybe it might be about the weather there...since that will be the first thing I will come in contact with there. Delhi is right now enjoying cloudless sky with sun successful at keeping Delhiites indoors with ACs on causing overload for the BSES and thus some hours without power - end result - ITS BLOODY HOT IN DELHI.
And now its again time to pack.... :)

Tech Wars: Mobiles vs. Cams/iPod

2005-05-26T18:06:00.000+05:30

Mobile Phones Versus iPods/Canon

It is finally happening. After a long wait, iPod will soon see some serious competition, not from the side of Microsoft, but from the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Actually not iPod but iPod mini (has smaller hard disk capacity). Sony Ericsson has come out full force with what they call as Walk-man Phone - W800. Nokia has recently launched its N series mobile phones which it dubs as iPod killers. These phones have a whopping 4GB of memory built into them. While the Sony Ericsson mobile phones are based on their own OS and are Java enabled, the Nokia's N Series run on Symbian series 60 platform. The strenght of SE W800 is whopping 30hrs battery life, while Nokia fails on this front. Similarly iPods also have a good battery life. Sony Ericssons good MP3 performance was seen in their earlier phone SE K700i (my phone, but lacked in external memory card support - the only drawback). From Nokia stable the best phone in N Series offering is N91. This is probably the only N series phone hving ability to compete with iPod and SE W-800. Also with SE W-800 the benefit is that with phone off one can still listen to MP3s, is this present in Nokia N Series is not known yet. Also, Nokia N Series is priced at a very high end. One big decision one has to take is whether he uses phone as a phone or a walkman. The prices of both phones is higher than iPod mini. The war has just begun. Its a three way war Apple vs. Nokia vs. Sony Ericsson. No one can say for sure, where will the customer head to. This is where we marketing guys have a role to play. If you are actually looking for a walkman phone, look ahead, go in for SE P-910 smart phone. If you wanna spend money - spend it wisely. Its a smart phone, really capable of playing MP-3 and has Symbian OS running it. And as of now its the best smart phone available in the market.

Now Canon versus Nokia versus Sony Ericsson. Well as can be seen on my PhotoBlog Sony Ericsson's mobile Camera (K-700i at mere 0.3MP) clicks good snaps if proper light is there. One thing which should be clear about mobile cams is that they need good light to click good snaps, this is because they lack a flash light (can you imagine a flash light sucking your mobiles battery everytime you click a snap). Now again here pitted are earlier mentioned phones from both the companies - SE W800 and Nokia's N Series (with N91 being best. Both these phones feature 2MP camera and Nokia N91 has 20X Digital zoom (keep in mind DIGITAL ZOOM and NOT OPTICAL ZOOM). Also Nokias phones are almost the double the cost of decent digicams having around 5MP and a good OPTICAL ZOOM and over it Digital Zoom. While Sony Ericsson's offering will be slightly higher than these digicams. Here also, priority needs to be seen. And before setting priority one needs to also check out an offering by Samsung - SCH S-250, its the world's first 5MP camera phone. But till the time camera phones are not integrating Optical Zoom also as a part of the phone, till then for digital photography one should prefer stand alone cameras, else any mobile phone having a lower resolution cam around 0.3MP to 1 MP should be preferred. It will help you save money for a good Digicam. Camera Phones are meant to click photos as and when they happen. This is because there are occasions when you don't have your camera, but mobile is always with you. So the higher pixel range camera is not required in a mobile phone. Even a 1MP camera phone will be useful, since the snaps clicked by these mobiles will be of print quality. Till some more innovationin the field of incorporating Optical Zoom in camera phones does not happen, the clear winner in this battle is stand alone Digital Camera with a low resolution camera phone.

BUT technology is growing at an unimaginable speed, thus this topic will keep on cropping up year after year.

Paris Hilton Advertisement for Burger

2005-05-25T12:36:00.000+05:30

Well Well Well......here is the link for the spicy hot car washing advertisement featuring the one and only Paris Hilton. The full version - uneditted one can be seen here: The ADVERT. But important thing is that the advt is not for car wash, but for a Spicy BBQ Burger. But this whole advt will not be featured over the television. The censor board has made the company cut it into a 30 sec advt.

Car washing just cannot get better than this, the only car washing scene which can be compared to this is probably featuring Denise Richards in movie Wild Things.

Lately Liril's advt also had to be cut short, just to please the censor board. Why can't we just do away with censor board and let the creativity flow. If the common crowd doesn't like it it will clearly reflect in the sales of the particular product. Even in Pepsi's "Oye Bubbly" advertisement the starting part featuring the belly buttons as lips calling out for Pepsi has also been cut.

Let the advertisements come on screen as they are made. Pepsi's advt was tooo good to be censored and cut. Liril had come out with some serious creativity - moving away from all the waterfall advertisements which was their backdrop in past, with only models changing.

Let the creativity and the market forces prevail to determine the success or failure of advt and also let the audience only determine how the advt is. Its as simple as "If we can have Mallika Sherawat on screen, these advertisements are anyday much decent than her acting or whatever she does."

My Photoblog Kickstarted

2005-05-21T22:11:00.000+05:30

Well, finally my photoblog is up and running.
You can access it at: Snapshots from heaven

Go ahead and have some fun.

Thinking about a Photo Blog.....

2005-05-19T19:47:00.000+05:30

Well thinking that this is probably the best time I can go ahead and set my own photoblog where I can post some selected pics taken from mobile cam or from other digicams....

Since am free for next few days, don't wanna waste it. Already planning to get a digital SLR - choice between Canon EOS 350D or Nikon D70s. Most probably Canon is going to win this fight if Nikon does not come out with a good competing camera at 8MP. Also, since more into nature photography have to look for a good wide angle lens which can take panorama pics at a go.

Just waitin' to Lay my hands on one of these two beasts of Digital SLRs.

So will put up the link after creating a photoblog soon.

My fave photo shoots have always been snow capped peaks (should have had an SLR cam before going to Sikkim in March). I aim to shoot a great sunrise someday (for that getting up around 5am is absolutely necessary). Though have got good sunsets at Andaman and a couple at Railway station. For clicking a great pic, one needs some real patience.

Next my fave shots I like taking are in a move train, standing or sitting on the door of the coach and clicking some country shots....trust me.....train is the best thing Britishers gave to India ever. India is extremely beautiful, and it can only be experienced during a train journey.

Also, now maybe in future I will be moving around a bit, but following lines will always always hold true: (The lines were given to this world by GnR - Paradise City)

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home (Oh, won't you please take me home)

[Home here is Delhi New Delhi, having the prettiest girls in the country and one of the very few metropolitans blessed with loads of greenery - truly a PARADISE CITY]

Lets see what the future has in store for me now...........

MBA - Ponder over it.........

2005-05-15T22:39:00.000+05:30

Henry Mintzberg of McGill University, Canada, advocates "You don't get trained in the capacity for managing in an MBA programme. You think you do, but . . . a lot of people end up grabbing for techniques. Where it goes wrong is in the case-study method: give me 20 pages and an evening to think about it and I'll give you the decision tomorrow morning. It trains people to provide the most superficial response to problems... getting the data in a nice, neat, packaged form and then making decisions on that basis. It encourages managers to be disconnected from the people they are managing".

Well, Mintzberg is 150% right. What we are taught are just mere techniques. Most of the students in any B School have no work experience. Most of us take MBA as a natural extension to our bachelors degree and in top B Schools the percentage of engineers is clearly above distinction (75% of the batch).

Well as a person who has been there done that, I would like to admit that though case studies is a method followed by all the B Schools as a primary teaching aid, but then as Mintzberg says what students do is just put the whole case neatly down on slides and in recommendations are made by just "thinking out of the box". With pressure of too many projects or assignments to be submitted, the case studies are the once which suffer the most as everyone feels they can do it anytime after finishing of the projects. Also, another place where we - in India - lack is - we do not have a huge collection of local (India Specific) case studies. We are always referring to Harvard BS case studies. In only some top B Schools do some professors convert their Industry experience into case studies, and these are the best case studies which they can use since they were personally involved in them.

But what I feel should be the future trend for B School education is having more of professionals coming to teach for a semester. Also as projects the Industry projects will provide the maximum learning to the students.

If B Schools and corporates want to have a continuous supply of good managers in future then they should work together to change the teaching methodologies in B Schools.

Also reading of "What they don't teach at Harvard Business School" should be made compulsory at all B Schools. One excellent book on people interaction - another area where B Schools lack.

THE INDIAN "IDLE"

2005-05-09T17:01:00.000+05:30

Well we have seen competitions like "Indian Idol", "American Idol", "Channel V's - Get Gorgeous" and all such competitions......
BUT WHERE IS INNOVATION.....
Imagine competitions like:
- The Indian IDLE
- The Sleeping IDOL
- Channel [T]ea's Get Bored

If anyone has any practical ideas on these lines....can help in making this list for future television serials longer.....and these are the concepts which will provide the best possible laughing material.....

You can see how bored I have been lately......my blogging rate is on a sharp rise.....

MICROSOFT TROUBLED BY GOOGLE

2005-05-06T16:11:00.000+05:30

Well the following link "Microsoft versus Google" makes for one hell of an interesting reading, especially for those who are open source software lovers.

The story goes like.........
Once upon a time Sergey Brin and Larry Page started of a company which claimed to provide the fastest and the best search possible. That was just a start. Companies like Microsoft and Yahoo did not consider them a challenge and outsourced their search tool to other companies, instead of having a search machine of their own. No one would have at that time guessed what Google's plan could have been. The magic which Google's search machine did was create a brand Google. Well the brand was such that instead of saying a sentence like "Search for xyz" people started using "Google for xyz". The word "search" was replaced by word "Google". Their were competitions like "Who is the best Googler?". Even in our campus we used to have student conducted Quizzes over LAN where the use of Google or any search machine was allowed.......but it was just to find the best Googler.

Also another thing which Google achieved was - cracking the mystery of how to make profits from online advertisements.

The Google of the search fame was ignored by the Microsoft as being just a simple online search tool. It was then, when Google had decided to go for its IPO, that they also decided to launch of their e-mail service - and what a marketing strategy to follow - "Membership by invitation".........this is a do or die strategy. But then to make it work they had a 1GB capacity for their mailboxes (which is now increasing towards 2GB). This was like a major earthquake for other big email providers like Yahoo, Microsoft and Rediff. While Yahoo and rediff reacted pretty fast MS was slow and it provided higher 250MB storage only on new accounts not on existing......what a miser Bill Gates is. For Google, this venture into email was a big success and from here the company has not looked back.

They are enjoying a real good run at Wall Street, and they have entered into many areas either through their own softwares or through acquisition - major being Orkut (social networking), Picasa (Photo management and editting software), Hello, and a real big one being Desktop Search (developed in-house).

It is the desktop search which is now giving sleepless nights to Microsoft - what will Google come up with next.

Also there are many cases as can be seen in the link given where Microsoft employees have left MS for Google.

Lets see where this war goes.......and there is no way Microsoft can buy Google.........just because of one simple reason........it was developed on Linux and MS buying a company which has its roots in Linux doesn't sound a good publicity for its current products.

Imagine the following scenario - Google releasing their own version of Linux with real easy to use desktop, an office software based on Open Office and also a browser!!!!!!! This all together can be a real Microsoft Killer.......

Till the results of this war are out.....Google away to glory.........

FIVE POINT SOMEONE

2005-04-30T22:27:00.000+05:30

This post coming after a real long time.....actually the reason is that I have been upto ABSOLUTELY NOTHING......other than my photography classes. They are real fun and this field is real interesting and worth a hobby.

As for my travels had been to Jabalpur between 20th and 25th April.

Well last night I had started a book called "Five Point Someone - What not to do at IIT" by Chetan Bhagat and just could not keep the book down till I read through all its pages. Its about three guys Hari, Alok and Ryan....all three close buddies and all of them good at acads before entering IIT-D and then about their struggle with the IITs relative grading system. How they tried to beat the system. It covers their actual life from the moment they entered IIT, to Hari's love interest (imagine sleeping with the HODs daughter in HOD's house in broad daylight and that too in real life), to their Pink Floyd, Vodka and Grass sessions on the 9th floor of the building [that is a must try ;-) ], to their struggle with the academic committee (for an attempt to steal exam paper from HOD's office - on the day Hari had slept with his daughter), to all of them struggling for jobs and then their parting away. It is an amazing description of the hostel life of the three IITians and is a true story as written by Hari (name taken up by Chetan Bhagat in the book).

Well the book is addictive and anyone who has lived in hostel will be able to relate to it in one way or the other...though hostel life everywhere is different....

Well its a book which you just cannot keep down.....hoping the movie version of the book does justice to it.

At some points you will be reminded of the movie "DIL CHAHTA HAI" - it also had three friends - Akash, Sameer and Siddharth (Sid) and talked about their college life, love life how they go seperate ways and still come back together....well to get the feel of the movie just see it if you haven't.

Well it reminded myself also of the fun we used to have in the hostel days at XIMB......as Bryan Adams would have said "Those were the best days of my life". Well personally I do miss the bakar sessions we used to have either in mess or outside on the stairs or while walking or in someones room.........those early morning tennis games or late night walks (actually early morning walks), also the thing which is being missed is the Birthday celebrations the XIMB way.......those block fights (also with water) at midnights.......

Still life has to move on......just over one more month to spend here in Delhi before I leave for Chennai......eagerly waiting for that moment, but the time doesn't seem to fly....infact seems to be moving too slowly.......

Well in this period also read "The Inscrutable Americans" by Anurag Mathur. The start for this book is with a letter written by Gopal (the main character) to his brother living in Jajau from USA. Well basically the story is about Gopal being from Jajau and small city (which Gopal termed as Paris of Madhya Pradesh) and has gone to study in USA (to a small college there though). The basic highlight of the book lies in the comical usage of English and how Gopal understands the American English, how he makes friends there, how he from a strict vegetarian and strict no-alcohol lifestyle changes towards having non-vegetarian food and making beer a part of his stay in USA. Also how he falls in love and is left heart broken. It basically tries to portray some of the difficulties which the people/students from smallers towns of India might face when they go to states. In the book also described was how Gopal had prepared for his stay at US and what he had thought was US all about. Well this is another book which is a must read. Really good. I read this book on my train journey to Jabalpur.

Killin' Time

2005-04-18T17:30:00.000+05:30

Well Killin' Time never got easier before....
Finally have joined a photography course.......this is for professional photography....and thus can be seen as my first step towards getting my very own NIKON D70 ...... Digital SLR (Single lens reflex) camera......

Well the classes seem to be good and interesting......and most important of all am getting a chance to play around with various SLR Cameras and also variety of lenses......which is not that easy.......

Will update on more later.......eagerly waiting to lay hands on my very own Nikon D70.......though its some months away.......

OOPS THE MEN IN BLUE DID IT AGAIN

2005-04-17T16:18:00.000+05:30

"What has to go wrong has to go wrong........"
But firstly did any thing go right at all.......

Firstly match on the Kotla grounds....the pitch which it was known will in no way hold good for a full day.......

Over this we lost the crucial toss....and allowed Pakistanis to score 303.....and now that score was almost impossible to chase on this wicket......BUT still...atleast we could have given the fight.....

On such occassions.....we are forced to think is the Tendulkar's era over.......just see him scoring and see Brian Lara scoring......Lara is going strong and consistent even today.........

We did not take wickets regularly...we let partnerships build up...but when our batting came.....we gave our wickets at regular intervals without letting any partnerships build......this feat was achieved by giving catching practice to slips, bringing the ball back onto the wicket (Tendulkar has expertise in this), and ravid giving his wicket the only way he can be dismissed - by running himself out........

So Pakistan Team has won straight four matches and they did it by bouncing back from being behind by 2-0 (India having 2 wins).......It was a difficult task of losing from that stage for India....but if any feat is not achievable....India can achieve it.......

This is not the way John Wright should have been given a farewell gift.......he has done a lot for Indian team and the team seems to have lost it all.........

Hoping Indians regain their form in the next series........if some decisions regarding leaving a senior player out of team due to lack of form has to be taken it should be taken....they should not take their place in team for granted......

All The Best to Men in Blue for future challenges........

KILLIN' TIME.........

2005-04-15T15:45:00.000+05:30

Long time since I last posted ne thing.....
So now...what is the scene here.....
Well I can at this stage very well imagine what a post retirement life can be.....

Now have around 45 days left to spend at home....

Over the past few days that I have been home....spent time with relatives....and met a couple of friends....also saw three movies and read two thrillers.......

SO i have been to Mumbai....the stay there was good...met some more friends and relatives out there and also saw "Miss Congeniality - 2" there.....The movie is a great time pass.....OK it is a one time watch but paisa vasool.....and nice comedy also....so those who haven't seen the movie yet....go and watch it....

Before that had seen "Pacifier" - imagine Vin Diesel as a BABYSITTER.......he did a great job....a MUST SEE movie from my side.......you are gonna have a great time laughing yourselves out in this movie.....really great......

Also saw "Million Dollar Baby"........this is an excellent movie.....the best among any recent english movies which have been around.......really good go ahead and see it......

Among the books.....had read Dan Brown's - The Da Vinci Code in XIM-B itself....so after coming home read two other books by him - "Digital Fortress" and "Deception Point". Among these two books Digital Fortress is a must read.

Now whats ahead.......on 20th April going to Jabalpur and will be back on 25th April. Planning to watch "Hitch" - I think it has released today. Have to decide on which book to pick up next.

So thats all thats been happening this side......missing the action filled campus life...where something or other kept happening.......

SOME MORE TRAVELLING........

2005-04-02T01:00:00.000+05:30

Its that time YET again......
I am gonna go travelling again.......
This time going to experience the cities of Pune and Mumbai....
Lets see what do they have on offer.....
Plus this is involving meeting relatives and old frnds......

So this year has been quite hectic....full of travelling....
In October to Andamans, in Feb-March to Darjeeling and Gangtok and in March to Kolkota and now Mumbai and Pune calling......

Have plans to visit Bangalore also.....that needs to be planned and plans need to be implemented......

So from today 2nd April afternoon till 11th April night...I will be out.... so another blogging break......

MORE PICS UPLOADED

2005-03-29T19:45:00.000+05:30

More pics have been uploaded and here go the links:
Convocation - More pics
Darjeeling Gangtok Trip - More Pics
Campus Pics

Well thats how I am spending my hols......
And now this work is also finished....WHAT NEXT.....
Do leave tips......how to pass two months.......

The Photo Albums

2005-03-25T22:05:00.000+05:30

Well I remember I had in earlier posts told that I would be uploading the photos of Farewell, the Trip and the Convocation......
After scanning have created yahoo albums out of them.....so here are the links......

The Farewell

The Darjeeling-Gangtok trip

The Convocation

Well these are the pics.....if the links do not work...leave a message.....
Enjoy the pics.....

Missin' Campus.....

2005-03-20T18:00:00.000+05:30

Its tooo early to come back after my last post but what to do.....second day at home...and missing XIMB and campus life already..... :(
Lets see what happens over next few days.....

The Convocation.........

2005-03-19T17:08:00.000+05:30

Finally I have made it back home.....after 2 years (to be precise 18 months) of MBA studies (better put in as hardcore fun - masti all the time - no matter how much the pressure was).

On 14th March 2005, came the day, for which I had waited so long......for the first time in my life I attended convocation ceremony (first time because here I am refering it as MY CONVOCATION CEREMONY - last year had attended seniors convo).

Mr. Jamshed Godrej, Chairman and MD, Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Company Limited was the Chief Guest for the ceremony.

The feeling of being the black gown and receiving the diploma cannot be described, it is one thing which everyone waits for. It marked the end of one phase of life and beginning of another new untravelled journey. I hope the journey on which I will set my foot on will be an exciting one.

Till that day many of us friends had stayed in hostel together and many of us by 14th March joined us back in campus. It was also the day on which we started bidding goodbye to all our friends hoping to meet them regularly in the course of our careers. The bonds established on campus will be long remembered and cherished. It was actually the first time when the feeling of leaving the campus actually set in.

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

Now as for the snaps the link will be put up in few days as and when i get good pics.

Journey into Darjeeling and Sikkim......

2005-03-07T11:56:00.000+05:30

Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.
--Babs Hoffman

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
--Augustine (354-430)

From 25th February to 5th March, 2005.......I was on a blogging holiday and enjoying myself out in the mighty Himalayas with my gang.......Lately it has been my longest stay away from Internet and I actually liked it......

People knowing me know how much I actually love to travel........its more like a passion and Himalayas have always given me a high........Most of my best trips have been into Himalayas........be it Kullu-Manali, Shimla, Mussouri or Darjeeling and Sikkim. This was my second trip into both places - Darjeeling and Gangtok (Sikkim). First time I went there I was a kid (as if I have grown up now - I am still a kid - this my friends tell me).

We were a gang of 11 people (my classmates at XIMB) who set out to experience the beauty of Darjeeling and Sikkim......The date of the journey was early morning hours of 25th February, 2005 when we set on the journey to Howrah on a train from where we had a connecting train to New Jalpaiguri. On 26th Feb, 2005 morning we reached New Jalpaiguri and after taking adequate rest and freshening up.....set on the road journey to Darjeeling. Also Narayan and Supriya joined us a bit late, courtesy their Japanese exam and the biggest hurdle they faced in joining us was catching the connecting train from Sialdah railway station after getting down at Howrah railway station. So biggest problem they faced was reaching Sialdah station on time for catching the train to New jalpaiguri, which they managed to and all that ends well makes the next part start well. It was around 3 hours drive to Darjeeling. The road and the toy train tracks run parallel all thoughout the journey. And we had chances to sing "Mere sapnon ki Rani kab aayegi tu" whenever we spotted a toy train. The scenic beauty is really amazing. One could easily see how the vegetation and flowers were changing as we were reaching higher altitudes. When we reached Darjeeling it was covered completely with mist (clouds) and was really cold. In Darjeeling we stayed at Sterling Resorts which is located in Ghoom, just next to the majestic Ghoom Monastery. Ghoom is around 8 kms away from Darjeeling (at 7000 feet).

On 26th February we reached Ghoom late than we had scheduled for and getting fresh over there took a bit too long. So there was no way we could do any sight-seeing over there that day. We were left with one option - roam around on Mall Road and do some shopping. So we spent the evening there having snacks and window shopping. Around 7 PM we tried to visit Nightingale Park, but we got delayed for it. The day finished off with dinner at Sterling Resort.

Now for some sightseeing, we were left with only one day, which according to actual plan we had reserved for Kalimpong, so the Kalimpong plan was chucked off (heard that its a real beautiful place, but its beauty is best experienced post April when it is filled with flowers).

So, on 27th February we started of for Ganga Maya and Rock Garden as the destinations to cover for that day and along with it other destinations to cover were Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) and the highest Zoo in the world located in Darjeeling. The day started of pretty early around 4 am when we decided to go to Tiger Hill (at 8482 feet) to see the Sun rise and also the amazing peaks of Mt. Everest and Mt. Kanchenjunga, but mist/clouds did not give us the chance to have that experience. The temperature at Tiger Hill was really low at 2 to 3 degree centigrade. After coming back Sathya treated us to tasty omellettes cooked by him. Then, we started of for Ganga Maya and while on route stopped at a Tea Garden (Orange Tea Estate). The complete slope covered with Tea Gardens look so beautiful.......only eyes can experience. After a short break at the tea estate we continued with our journey to Ganga Maya. Ganga Maya, is basically is a park set around a mountain river flowing, passing through rocks and small waterfalls. It looks really beautiful. A massive photo clicking exercise was carried out over there. We spent around one hour over there. We did not want to leave the place so early, but then time constraints. The next stop was at Rock Garden, which was again set around a mountain river on a slope, and it too had many small waterfalls. This garden is completely built on a slope of a mountain, thus implying a lot of climbing up. This place provided an excellent view of the valley around the place. After enjoying the time over there we moved back to Darjeeling to visit HMI and the Zoo. The Zoo had various mountain animals like - Red Panda, Black Bear, Siberian Tiger and many others. After the zoo we entered HMI, which had on display various mountaineering equipments, news paper articles about conquest of Mt. Everest, and a real good 3-D model of the Himalayan Mountain peaks and Himalayas in Sikkim. It also had articles on Yeti. After these places, we had our lunch in truly Tibetan format. For some it tasted bland, but still some of us liked it. At the end some of us ordered, Lemon Ginger Tea with extra Honey and it was really good. Then the rest of the evening was spent shopping around on the Mall Road. On Mall Road there is an eating joint - The Glenary's below which there is a bar - The Buzz and there at The Buzz we enjoyed a local band playing some real great music. So, this day can be said to be a good start to the journey.

On 28th Feb we were scheduled to leave for Gangtok, so just before starting of for the journey we visited the Ghoom Monastery - which was setup in 1850 AD. (its actual name being - Yiga Chholing Monastery). After visiting the monastery we started of for Gangtok and had breakfast on the way. The road from Darjeeling to Gangtok is full of beautiful scenery all around. My phone camera kept clicking all around at will. Our friend for the whole Sikkim trip - river Teesta, caught up with us in a majestic manner. Its first glimpse was its merger with another major river of Sikkim - Rangit. The waters of both the rivers are so different - The color of Teesta is Light Green while that of Rangit is in the darker shades of blue. From there Teesta never left us. It was our friend, it was our guide, it was our "guiding river". Wherever in Sikkim we went, we had it with us all along. We also saw the area from where rafting on Teesta starts and also saw how wild Teesta can get. We missed our chance to experience river rafting over Teesta.

After a magnificent journey of around 4 hours we reached Gangtok and reached our Hotel - Hotel Norphill, located on MG Road and just next to Glenary's and Buzz and also an wine, beer and other alcohol drinks shop. So the location was kind of a boon for some. That day after freshening up and some rest we went for lunch at "The Oriental" - the food there was really yummy. Then all of us went to have a try on getting a ride on ropeway but we were late for it and so came back to MG Road and went to the footpath market for some shopping and bought some real beautiful paintings and some chimes. That was all for 28th February. The weather at Gangtok as we had earlier been told was much more comfortable than that of Darjeeling (Darjeeling is at around 1500 feet height more than that of Gangtok). After a nice dinner at The Buzz we had a nice sleep for the night as for next day we were scheduled for a nice long trip to Changu (Tsomgo) Lake.

Now 1st March 2005, after getting up and having nice warm water bath and breakfast at the hotel itself we started of for Changu Lake located at 12400 Feet while Gangtok is at around 5480 feet. This would be our first tryst with snow on this journey. It is around 40 kms from Gangtok and lies on the route to Nathu La pass - the Old Silk Route Path which is again in the process of being revived back. Nathu La pass has been closed down for a month due to heavy snowfall, thus, no Nathu La for me yet again on my second trip here, still I was able to manage to reach Changu Lake, which I had missed the first time. In middle we stopped for tea. The place where we stopped, it was dicovered that a peg of rum or vodka costed a mere Rs. 20/-, it was more like a daily drink than a slightly expensive drink in the plains. So yet again, some enjoyed the warm drink. Also, it has to be mentioned that the tea was really tasty, among the best we had on the trip. Then back on the road, we again stopped after some time for taking some pics in the excellent backdrop of snow and mountains partially covered by it. The scenery all around the place was too beautiful. The scene directly from movies. Luckily Sikkim is now opening its doors for movie shooting though slowly. After reaching Changu lake, we had to hire boots, so as too play on the snow and also to reach the other side of the lake we had to travel on Yaks. The lake looks so peaceful and was completely frozen. There at Changu we spent our time sliding on snow, playing around there. Many amongst us lost their snow virginity to Changu lake (I had lost it to Manali). on route to Changu lake we passed through - Tashi View Point, Hanuman Tok and Ganesh Tok, but there was no point stopping there because of the mist which had been with us throughout the trip destroying all our chances to have a glimpse of Mighty Mt. Kanchenjunga. On our return from Changu lake we again stopped at the spot where we had tea while going up. This time we had Momos and again lots of tea and by evening reached the hotel. Then we spent our time in the evening visiting the ropeway and getting a beautiful view of the Gangtok City and then roamed around on the MG Road. That night we had dinner at Parivar- a veg restaurant out there. The food was again good, loved the butter naans there.

The next day - 2nd of March 2005, we had plans to go to Yumthang Valley (North Sikkim) at a height of 12000 feet and at a distance of 145 kms from Gangtok and involves an overnight stay at Lachung (at 8800 feet and 116 kms from Gangtok). So the journey started around 11:00 am. Till La Chung it was supposed to be a long journey of around 6 and a half hours with breaks. There are too many waterfalls on the route and many even cross the road, directly in front of you. The area is also a landslide zone. Enroute you have a stop at "Seven Sisters Waterfall" which is a vertical cliff (excellent for attempting suicide) through which a stream is flowing (actually falling straight down). It is called Seven Sisters because there are supposed to be seven falls for one stream on this cliff, while onlyfour are clearly visible. Again Teesta was our friend and guiding river. We were non stop going upstream to the point where the mighty river of Sikkim the Teesta is born. Teesta is born in a small village of Chungthang. Here the two mountain rivers - Lachung and Lachen (named after the main villages they flow through) merge to form Teesta. The river flows with extreme force and speed. As one army personnel told us, one just has to fall into the river and there is a very rare chance that he will survive. Chungthang is also an important point because it is one place which is gateway to two main destinations of North Sikkim - Yumthang Valley and Gurudongmar lake (Largest and highest lake in Sikkim and is also considered sacred). Both places are on seperate routes and the road divides for these places at this small village of Chungthang. The villages in Sikkim have been the most picturesque. The scenic beauty surrounding them cannot be described using photos or videos, only eyes can truly appreciate them. We had a Tea break at Chungthang and then moved forward to Lachung for overnight stay before moving onto Yumthang Valley the next morning. Here in Lachung we stayed at Sela Inn. A really comfortable place to stay at. Nice beautiful rooms with wooden flooring. The dinner was also tasty, similar to house made food. After dinner most of us had a taste of "Changu" pronounced as "Chhang". Its a local drink made of millet and tastes quite similar to Port Wine. It is served in a wooden bowl covered with Changu upto the brim in hard form (millet) on which warm water is poured. This mixture has to be sucked using a straw made of bamboo after two minutes of pouring water. The drink was really amazing. At night we went for a walk up to the point from where we could see river Lachung in full glory at night time. The roar of the river had filled up the place.

The next morning on 3rd March 2005 at 6 am we were woken up with a bed tea and warm water to freshen up. BUT, I decided to go out and what I see was truly amazing, and since I did not want the other gangsters to miss out on the first sunrise viewing on this trip. So woke others up and along with Shikha, video taped the whole sunrise - those beautiful golden peaks all around us with the river Lachung flowing through the place. After getting ready we all left for Yumthang around 8 am. It was one hour journey along the river Lachung. It was a steep climb straight into the heights, and halfway we met snow on both sides of the road. At many points we had thick and huge walls of snow on both sides of the road. There were turns where the road had been washed out and it was extremely rough. At such points we had to reverse the car and rush it forward full speed. There were many beautiful spots all along the way. At Yumthang valley, we had snow covered mountains all around us, river Lachung flowing through the valley. The valley during this time is covered with thick snow and in summer months will be covered with flowers, and in both cases looks truly beautiful. For the first time on the trip we were experiencing clear weather. The white peaks meeting the blue sky with river flowing in between looked like an artists imagination and work on the canvas. It seemed as if god had used earth as his canvas. We even made XIMB on snow using ourselves as well as pebbles. I have visited many places in Himalayas but none as beautiful as Yumthang Valley. Around 11 am we had to leave the place and after reaching Lachung we had our lunch there. Sheila aunty made amazing momos for lunch. They were tooo tasty. By night we reached back to Gangtok and had our dinner at The Oriental and then saw Sania Mirza's match in Dubai Open on TV where she had lost and then went off to sleep.

On 4th March 2005, in the morning we did some local shopping and then around 11:30 am we left to see Ranka Monastery and Rumtek monastery (24 Kms from Gangtok). While Ranka monastery is a new monastery, and has been beautifully built on a completely different architecture from Rumtek Monastery. Rumtek monastery will give u a straight feel of history when one enters its walls. Its really a huge monastery. Rumtek monastery is important because it is the World Dharma Chakra Centre and also because it is the seat of his holiness - The Gyalwa Karmapa who is head of Kagyupa order of Tibetan Budhism. The monastery was built in 1730. The campus also includes - The Golden Stupa and Shri Nalanda Institute for Higher Budhist Studies.

After coming back to Gangtok we had lunch at The Parivar and then went on to get ready to leave for New Jalpaiguri to catch the train back to Bhubaneswar. We left Gangtok around 6 pm. The complete journey in Tata Sumo (all front facing seats) was great. Their was occassional rains in the path, it was completely dark and the whole route was full of sharp curves and the driver was taking the curves at speeds of 50 to 60 kmph. Some of the gangsters had started praying for safe journey. The driver had not slept since 4 am so that was another cause of worry for those praying. He drove extremely well, even though there was steep fall on one side and trucks coming from front. The journey till New Jalpaiguri was of 4 hours and after reaching there we found out our train was delayed by an hour. Finally on 5th night (actually 6th morning) we reached XIMB. We entered the campus at 3 am on 6th March 2005. Thus, ending our trip to Darjeeling and Gangtok.

Though we could not see Kanchenjunga on this trip, but am sure the next time the gangsters go for their respective honeymoon to Sikkim they will surely get a glimpse of mighty Mt. Kanchenjunga, some things after all should be kept for first time. Yeah we all decided that our honeymoon is going to be in Sikkim, lets see what happens.

Ok now you would be wondering who the gangsters were. They are:
Shikha, Sonal, Hima, Supriya, Sanket, Kartik, Venky, Narayan, Sathya, Sachin and myself (Gaurav).

The person who was the most happy after finding out that he could get pegs at Rs. 20/- in Sikkim was Narayan.

As we gained in heights PQ levels of Sonal also gained heights.

Sathya papa revealed his true form in dumbcharades on the return journey in train.

Shikha was a typical Shikha falling here falling there.

About me.....he he.......only others can tell......

so u can very well imagine how good the trip was.

About the pics......
Some of them have been uploaded so CLICK HERE

Back from Trip

2005-03-06T04:11:00.000+05:30

Well returned from the trip to Darjeeling and Gangtok just about an hour back and here I am posting my arrival back.........
So my blog here I am........
I will do a detailed posting on the trip sometime later.......
abhi need to take rest......

ON A BLOGGING HOLIDAY

2005-02-25T03:13:00.000+05:30

Well currently going on a blogging holiday for around 10 days......

It was indeed an eventful week......
I can finally say that on 22nd February I gave my last ever exam in XIMB......and now no more projects or assignments or quizzes.....

Unofficially......my MBA is complete.....it will be complete only when I get the diploma on 14th March, 2005.......

So decided to take a break with my gang out here......so we going to Darjeeling and Gangtok.....
We are about to leave in 1 hour 15 mins (4:30 am) from now to the station - the train is at 5:20 am.....

So since I will be out this while I will not be blogginf till I return on late night 5th March.....

These indeed have been best two years of my life.......not just because I did MBA.....but because I think I might have changed a lot while residing here........this is for others to find out......

Now is the time to enjoy the best time with closest friends out here.....

Will be back with a post about the trip and more.......

Till then cya,
have fun.......
Gaurav.....

------- Blog: I'll Be Back......

AMAZIN' JUNIORS..........

2005-02-20T03:10:00.000+05:30

WE CAME, WE SAW, WE CONQUERED AND NOW WE HAVE TO SAY ADIEU

How does the time fly by.......one will never ever realize........seemed like it was yesterday.....dat we entered the land.....which we wud soon in a months time call our home......and now the time has come that we have to leave the place.....the place which we call our home.......the place where we have spent two of the most wonderful years in our lives till date.......this is the place where I have made friends for life......

Yesterday, on 19th February, 2005........we were given farewell by our juniors.....

It started of with presentation of lovely gifts for all of us........
And these gifts consisted of and address book consisting of contact info of our seniors, our batchmates and our juniors, then there was also a beautiful piece of local art speciality and then a diary aptly named "FOOTPRINTS". FOOTPRINTS consisted of messages from some faculty members and then along with the names of all my batchmates it had their pic and half page writeup on them........

Then there were short speeches by faculty members and some of my classmates.........

There were also Titles given - there were various titles selected for which voting was carried out and PGP-2s voted for their classmates.......
I too got one of these and the title which is received is "KIDDO OF 2003-05"
The other titles which were given were like: Winning Smile, Official 'vella', 'faff' king/queen, Ultimate Ruler of AOE, Jim Carrey of the Batch and many more........

All this was followed by dinner and then dance party......

I will have to admit that juniors really put up an amazing show.....they really outdid us compared to what we had done last year........I am lucky to have juniors like these......I hope that they do really well in their future and set standards for their juniors the way we had......and then hope that the standards be broken........it feels great......

Will always miss XIMB and XIMB will always remain close to my heart.......its the best thing which has happened to me till date and maybe for a long time coming........

Some snapshots from the evening.......
(Thumbnails can be clicked for a full size view)

Jumpin' of the Audi stage after presentation of Momentoes......

Group snap in full flow......people we will miss.....

Yet another group snap......looks so gud....

Lookin' upwards.......

Aimin' higher n higher.......

The gangsters......

Yet another failed attempt on killing me...... ;-)

FINALE

2005-02-19T08:31:00.000+05:30

I think too many posts coming on one single day........
But can't help it..........

Today is the last day of classes here at XIMB.......
My last class is at 3:45 PM..........and maybe last presentation might also happen then....
BUT what takes the cake is........we also had our last quiz on campus.......
and at an hour...when we all should have been sleeping......at 7AM.......
what a time to give a quiz at.....
So, slowly the life is grounding to a halt at XIMB.......
Now, tonight juniors are giving us a farewell party......looking forward to it.......
Its gonna be fun......

These years at XIMB have been till date the best years of my life........and these r not gonna be back.....anymore......

A BRAND NEW LOOK

2005-02-19T04:15:00.000+05:30

Well my blog is now sporting a brand new look........

All this courtesy a frnd who actually made me change the look of the blog.......and best part was she helped me in giving it this new look...........

Loads of thanks to her........

So how is the new look compared to the older one........waitin for ur comments.........

2005-02-19T04:02:00.000+05:30

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

SNAPSHOTS FROM CAMPUS........

2005-02-18T17:36:00.000+05:30

As I had mentioned a few posts back...that there will be some images from the campus coming up soon.....so here they are.....

The campus lately had been full of flowers....looking extremely beautiful......So what we did was simple......capture the nature's beauty molded with man made beauty (our campus) and couple it with us beautiful people......and overall we get beautiful pics.....[So much for the sake of beauty in this post ;-) ]

So here goes the picture story yet again........ [The thumbnails can be clicked for full size view]

That is we all clicking a snap at X-Cafe.....the location of numerous lunches and dinners we had when we didn't feel like having it in mess....well u can guess the ration between eating here and at mess......
[L to R] [Sanket, Gaurav, Hima, Kartik, Chandu]

This is taken at the Director's Lawn.....it is situated, between the acad block and the Director's house.......
[L to R] [Gaurav(me), Sanket, Hima, Kartik, Chandu]

This pic....well from distance the building behind - Fortune Towers - looks as a part of our campus....well it ain't.....when I first entered the campus...I was after seeing it...like....wow, this is part of our campus.....Also can be seen the Christmas Tree in front of the Director's house....
[Gaurav (me) and Sanket]

Here we are sitting right in front of the Director's house, where Christmas Tree along with many Rose flowers can be seen......beautifully maintained.....
[L to R] [Gaurav (me), Kartik, Shikha, Sanket and Hima

This is the backyard of Director's House.....many fruit trees here....
[L to R] [Hima, Sanket, Shikha, Gaurav (me) and Chandu]

This is the lawn in the acad bloc.....
[L to R] [Hima, Sanket, Kartik and urs truly]

A mini jungle in campus....
[Hima, Shikha, myself, Kartik]

This is the lawn next to the Auditorium.....
[L to R] [Hima, u kno who, Kartik, Shikha]

Flowers in Front of Audi...."Ek phool, do maali"
[urs truly and Kartik]

These are the windows on top of the entrance door for our hostel....one can feel amazing wind blowing here during the evenin and whole night.....
[L to R] [Hima, Urs Truly (sitting), Shikha and Sanket]

Dats my room....where I have spent past one year...inherited from Jayanta who was my next door neighbour last year....
[L to R] [Sanket, myself and Hima]

Urs Truly.......

Well, that was one part of picture story.......this part was brought to you using a Canon PowerShot A75, thus images loaded easily......waiting for the next lot of pictures to come and then they will have to be scanned......and put up.....

Last seven days officially left in campus.......trying to make the most of it.....

Trying to plan a picture story on my stay here.....lets see if it can work......

MAXINATIONS 2005 - EVENT WITH A DIFFERENCE

2005-02-15T22:48:00.000+05:30

Who would have thought that Maxinations an event which is fought for by all the hostel blocks on campus with full energy and capacity........might end up just differently........

ALL BLOCKS WINNING THE TROPHY

Generally Maxinations has created a lot of rivalry between the students themselves of competing blocks. The event is being held at a time when we have just around 2 weeks in campus, and we would have loved to leave the campus with friendships still intact as it was before and not pulled down due to the extreme love for respective blocks (the love for respective blocks still remains intact, but first and foremost we are XIMBIANS)

This time around also, the level of competition was heating up and the spirit with which the whole event should have been played with was no where to be seen. All the blocks in running were fighting for each and every point and all were ready to do just anything for them. Even small small things would be put up before the team conducting the event so that penalty can be put on the block targetted.

A lot many things happened, it reached a point where Students Council got involved. It was here after a lot of discussions, it was decided that MAXINATIONS - 2005 will continue, but with a change.......

The change being that, games will be played in the spirit in which games should be played, without any points and just for the heck of having great fun........and fun - that day was one of the best days out here.....everyone had great time.......

In the end, it was a great end, with the trophy being shared by all the blocks......all rivalries came to end and everyone was happy with the way it all went.

Kudos to the MAXIM team which conducted this event in the manner in which the Spirits soared among the XIMBIANS

Listening to: Send me an Angel by Scorpions
Reading: Planning to start "Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown
Blogging Holiday: From 25th Feb 2005 till 5th March 2005 - off to Gangtok trip with the XIMB gangsters.......

BTW had read "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown in January after placements.......and would love to recommend it to everyone who have not read this book. Extremely fast paced......well scripted with a tight plot, with many sound facts......

PASSING THOUGHTS

2005-02-13T16:50:00.000+05:30

One of the quotes from Spiderman.....just ringed again in my brain......
"With great powers come great responsibilities....."

And lastly.......for having fun......all time masti....competition should be eliminated.......

Competition element removed from Maxinations - it rocks......
Kudos to people behind this decision of making it competition free.....

MAXINATIONS 2005

2005-02-12T14:59:00.000+05:30

Well its turned on and its getting hotter and hotter as the time passes by..........

well well........don't get any ideas......have tried to keep the blog as clean as possible......

So now u will ask What the hell is this MAXINATIONS?
Well here at XIMB we have 6 different blocks - In Boy's Hostel - 4 blocks - A, B, C and D (my block)
Then, RMH which is the Girl's Hostel and den RM Hoste (Rural Management)......

So in Maxinations there are a series of events - Block Intro, Quizzes, Crosswords, Mock Press, Presentations and various other games......

Here all the block fight it out...giving it their best shot......so as to win as many events as possible and try and emere as the winners.

The basic funda is that you are given a product.......like we were given an Island last year and this year an Alien.
What each block has to do is to come out with a marketing strategy which involves giving your product the name, slogan, logo and the marketing agency......The biggest and the most important factor you have to try and do is to generate the maximum brand recall for your product. This is the most difficult part.

The sleep for most of us goes for a toss........

Currently our block is holding the Trophy for Maxinations 2004. It was one helluva close fight last year and it was a lot of fun.....
Also, right now our block is leading in this years Maxinations.......hopin that we make it second time in a row......fingers are crossed....a lot many events left to go....anything and everything can happen........

Overall it is a lot more fun.....if it is played in right spirit after all at the end of Maxinations....spirits will be flowing and spirits will be soaring.......hope u understand that ;)

dats all for now.....will update more later.......

P.S.: 100 Gmail invites up for grabs......if u want leave a message in comments.....

XIMB GD/PI CALLS

2005-02-01T13:35:00.000+05:30

Well this is just to tell the prospective candidates that XIMB GD/PI calls are out and can be seen at: http://www.ximb.ac.in/start/

All the best....

LAST MONTH ON CAMPUS........

2005-02-01T01:22:00.000+05:30

Time currently: 12:02 AM
Date: 1st February, 2005

Today the last month of stay on campus begins. Officially the term is ending on 26th February, 2005. Describing how one might be feeling while leaving this place, where we have spent 2 of the best years of our lives is not actually possible. Made some really great friends.......personally I might have also changed a lot. Well this my friends in Delhi will be able to tell better.

I am sure, the time spent here - especially since it was my first experience with hostel life - will always linger on in both my mind and heart. I am looking forward to our Darjeeling - Gangtok trip eagerly.....it will be great to have some real great time with the closest friends which I have here.

Well I think letting this post to be short is better than trying to put the feelings in words...coz I cannot do justice to them....

To end the post: One of the songs I like:
Group: Queen
Song: We are the Champions....

I've paid my dues -
Time after time -
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime -
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face -
But I've come through

We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end -
We are the champions -
We are the champions
No time for losers
'cause we are the champions - of the world -

I've taken my bows
And my curtain calls -
You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it -
I thank you all -

But it's been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise -
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race -
And I ain't gonna lose -

We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end -
We are the champions -
We are the champions
No time for losers
'cause we are the champions - of the world -

BIT/BIS @ DELHI UNIVERSITY NETWORK

2005-01-31T02:14:00.000+05:30

BIT/BIS NETWORK

Well this post is basically for all the Bachelor of Information Technology and Bachelor of Information Science grads of Delhi University. Well the website - a brand new one at that and completely refurnished is going to be launched on February 1st, 2005. This website for which the link can be found at the top of the post is a result of an Alumni Meet of BIT/BIS of all colleges which was held in New Delhi at India Habitat Centre on (i think) 9th January, 2005.

The discussion on next alumni meet is already starting up at BIT/BIS Yahoogroup. So if you are not a member send in your request with some details like name, batch and college to the yahoogroup.

The website currently is in test phase and the chat and message board links are operational. Also, the clubs are being formed to handle the alumni meets and interaction at various locations.

I hope to see the BIT/BIS community starting to move on again........

OFFER LETTER

2005-01-29T13:34:00.000+05:30

Today Finally i got my offer letter from TVS Electronics where I am placed as a Management Trainee for a period of One Year.
So now it is confirmed that joining is on 1st June, 2005 at Chennai.

As I once said "Studies and Work take people places"
[I hope I am the only one who coined this phrase]

So from Delhi to Bhubaneswar for studies. From there to Chennai for work.....
At this rate Antarctica is not far away ;-)

This was an offer letter, I have accepted it and returned a copy of it duly signed.
Detailed joining instructions are still awaited.
A detailed medical test also needs to be carried out.

Thats all for now.

LIFE MOVES ON.........

2005-01-29T01:25:00.000+05:30

LIFE MOVES ON

Alright I also admit this post is coming in way toooooooo late.......
It should have been here atleast 2 weeks ago.
I cannot also say that I was busy - I am a vella (totally or almost free - without much workload).

Anyways, since delay has been here, the post will include details on following fronts:
- Placements @ XIM-B
- Life @ XIM-B
- Looking forward to..........

PLACEMENTS @ XIM-B

Well Xuberance 2005 (Campus Placements at XIMB) - the event we PGPM Class of 2005 was looking forward to, finally happened and was a short lived event. It was over within a day with amazing results. Everyone was happy.
Placements are the most important phase of MBA for any student pursuing this course. The placements showed big time improvement compared to last year both in salaries as well as quality.
Some HARD FACTS:
- We termed the placements as a problem of plenty: 1.75 offers per student
- 113 students participated in the placement process of a batch of 116
- 59 companies participated, out of which 14 had to return empty handed
- Average salary: Rs. 5.24 Lakhs and Median Salary: Rs. 5.08 Lakhs
- Highest Indian Salary: Rs. 9 Lakhs
- Lowest Salary: Rs. 3.5 Lakhs
- Highest Lateral overseas offer: USD 84,000

The placements started on 8th January 2005 (just a day after my birthday - so it was bound to be a record breaking one) and it was wrapped up the same day itself.

The placement details are given in detail at: XUBERANCE 2005

I think i have not mentioned where I got placed. Well had multiple offers - and i chose TVS Electronics as my destination with them offering me a job in Sales and Marketing profile. So, I will be going to Chennai initially and then the final destination as of now I myself have no clue.

LIFE @ XIM-B

Ah with placements over, what should we do.
Most of us are having on the average around 2 papers to finish of this semester.
So workload at bare minimum for most of us. Now we are passing our time watching movies, reading novels, playing tennis or any other sport and dining out whenever possible.
The session ends on February 26th, 2005. So parting away from XIM-B campus is toooo near. Just cannot imagine life out of XIMB Campus.
Also, the campus is right now looking so beautiful with flowers blooming all across. Sorry, no snaps right now, but the moment they are developed and scanned I will put them up.

LOOKING FORWARD TO......

Now with time at XIM-B coming to an end, I am personally looking forward to spending as much time with the close friends which I have made here. We all planning to go to Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok and have loads of fun out there. The train tickets have been booked. The basic trip outline laid out, now we have to wait for the day to come when we leave for the journey. The plan is that we leave on 25th February morning and return back to XIMB on 5th March late night. Its the visit to the Paradise City.......
Here I recall Guns and Roses song (only partial song being referenced)

Take me down to Paradise City,
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.....
(rest of the song will take me home - which this trip will not take me to)
[Girls here refer to other tourists making a beeline there during the peak season ;-) ]
[So hopefully some bird watching also]

Gangtok is one of the most beautiful hill stations in India, giving breathtaking view of the third largest peak of the world - Mt. Kanchenjunga.
People knowing me know how much I love visiting hill stations, playing with snow if its there and on another extreme I also love beaches equally. But the scenery offered at Hill Stations is unparalleled.
Fingers are crossed, hoping that the journey is a memorable one.
After the trip we plan to come back to campus and spend time here and roaming Orissa itself till 13th March or so. 14th March is convocation. Parents will be coming to campus for convocation - my first ever convocation.
Lots to look forward to. After reaching home, have to also get back in touch with all the friends who would be remaining in Delhi at that time.
Life will change drastically once out of here.

For a change no snaps in this post, but in near future ones there will be some.
Look out for them..........................

Happy New Year

2005-01-01T20:10:00.000+05:30

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing everone a Very happy New Year....hope all your dreams come true......
Also hoping you have more n more dreams....lasting for further new years to come.....
So,

WELCOME YEAR 2005........

Some of the pics from the new year party here at XIMB:
[Thumbnails can be clicked for a full size view]

[THE BONFIRE] - Contributed by myself

[MUSIC @ THE BONFIRE] - Contributed by myself

[THE CLOCK TICKING] - Contributed by myself

[The New Year Cake] - Contributed by myself

[Chanchal, Sachin, myself, Sonal, Kartik(Blue Shirt),
Ritwick, Sanket, Ravi Sid, Shantanu ] - Contributed by myself

[Sitting: Sanket, Ravi Sid]
[Row 1 Standing: Hima, Gaurav (myself), Sonal, Ritwick, Milind]
[Row 2 Standing: Sachin, Shantanu, Kartik, Supriya]
- Contributed by myself

[Pradeep, Sachin, Myself, Sanket, Shantanu, Ritwick]
- Contributed by myself

[Sitting Row 1: DD, Shantanu, Darpan]
[Half Sitting, Half Standing: Sanket, Hima, Supriya]
[Row 1 Standing: Myself, Sonal, Sachin (Patiala),
also behing me a face can be seen - Pijush]
[Row 2 Standing: Sachin, Pradeep, Kartik]
- Contributed by myself

[My Consumer Behavior group @ new years:
Supriya, Ritwick, Sonal, Gaurav (myself) and Sachin]
- Contributed by myself

[Apni hi dhun mein chale hein - Pijush, Shantanu and Kartik]
- Contributed by myself

[Sitting: Hima, Supriya, Sonal, Gaurav (myself)]
[Standing: Sachin, Sanket, Pradeep]
- Contributed by myself

[The Party is on "Gemini Gemini" is the song]
- Contributed by myself

[The Party goes on]
- Contributed by myself

Thats all......Again wishing everyone a Happy and a Prosperous New Year

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

Merry Christmas

2004-12-24T18:50:00.000+05:30

Wishing all of you Merry Christmas...Have a fun-filled time with your close ones and friends......

On the other side....the fifth term @ XIMB is now over. So just one more term and placements left. Placements are due in second week of January.

The classes for last term also started.......ah and for a change it should be light...with just two subjects taken: Project Appraisal and Services Marketing.

Also, the campus looking much more beautiful with all the flowers blooming....

Some of the snaps captured using my mobile:

The Auditorium

View From Auditorium

Just a Random Thought

2004-12-13T07:09:00.000+05:30

Morning time: 6:52 AM
Song Playing: Roadhouse Blues by "The Doors"

"Ah Keep your eyes on the road,
Your hands upon the wheel.
Keep your eyes on the road
Your hands upon the wheel.
Yeah, we're going to the roadhouse,
Gonna have a real good-time."

What am i doing........staring at my comp.....thinkin wat to study......
BUT then 4 semesters gone.....did i ever study here.....
Just a day left and then from 15th December starts the fifth term exam........
Wow......now fifth term also coming to an end.....

It seems like yesterday I was in first term.......
And as of today (13th December, 2004), 75 more days @ XIMB left.....

But, I have always loved the exam time.....loads and loads of eating happens......loads and loads of bullshitting both on paper and off paper........

Have always enjoyed the examination scene since those BIT (@ DU) days........they were fun........"ER aayega ki nahin" solid suspense reheta thha.......we would get ERs in subjects we never expected and passed in subjects we didn't deserve to.....that was life.........now it is different........The last time I seriously studied for exams was in the first term here at XIMB, after that it seems i have gained immunity against examination fever....

After exams comes the placement prep time....(as a matter of fact the only reason I think anyone does MBA is for that ONE JOB - and there is NO OTHER REASON, whatever the person may say.....)

So then in the very same song (Roadhouse Blues)there is a stanza:

"The future's uncertain
And the end is always near."

So the basic funda of life is enjoy it while is lasts.......
The Doors....rocks.....great way to start day with those bluesy rocksy feeling.......and its MONDAY.......ah those Monday Morning Blues - na they don't happen.......

While I end this post......
Winamp has shifted through playlist to Eric Clapton's - Cocaine

XIM Bhubaneswar and CII

2004-12-09T20:17:00.000+05:30

Finally, today the good news regarding the linking up of XIM Bhubaneswar with Confederation of Indian Industry being finalized came. MoU has been signed between CII and XIMB, according to which they will be setting up Centre of Excellence in the areas of research, training and consultancy.

We were told that work on this is going during our the convocation ceremony of our seniors.

This will further enhance the industry linkage of our institute.

For press articles:
Article on Rediff.com
Article in Economic Times

Other Related Links:
Business Standard Report
Report on CII Website

Finally new version of the blog revealed......

2004-12-04T16:10:00.000+05:30

Finally, I today started and finished off with the work on the new blog design......hoping it is looking fine.....
Simple, 3 Column design, was what i wanted and I got it.....I like it.....
Thinkin on some kinda horizontal pic of the size of the topmost rectangle....
ne one having any rough idea on what kind of design can go there.....do leave comments (design may be available somewhere, or might be possibly made using images)....

Also...try this:

2004-12-02T22:32:00.000+05:30

HOW MUCH YOU MATCH WITH YOUR SUNSIGN

You are 73% Capricorn

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

2004-12-02T19:33:00.000+05:30

THE BEST MANAGEMENT STUDENT AWARD

At the 13th Business School Affaire, the Best Management Student Award was won by my classmate - Kartik Subramanian (PGP-2, XIMB). The prizes are sponsored by Dewang Mehta Foundation. This is one real amazing news for us all at XIMB campus. 2 of the 35 students shortlisted (from over 500 entries from Business Schools across the country) for this title were from our institute, the other candidate being Monideepa Dasgupta.

In the same event, XIMB also won second prize for the on the topic Best Presentation Contest 'The Retail Paradigm: Growth and Opportunities'. For this, the team constituted of Kartik Subramanian and Shikha Garg.

For the first time XIMB also took part in the Placement Brochure Contest. This award was won by the Rural Management placement brochure of XIMB.

This year has been going great for us and I hope this run continues. Though the bull run at the BSE might plateau around 8,000 , I believe that XIMB has started on the run now only, and will go a long distance.

For News Articles:
Economic Times
On CoolAvenues

2004-11-26T17:09:00.000+05:30

MUSINGS FROM XAVIER LAND (XIM-B)
(Tip: Click on the thumbnails to see the original size snaps)

Well seems it is time I should have posted an update.......no probs.....will do it now......
Moreover visited my blog myself after one whole week....need to keep tab on it regularly.....

Loads of stuff in mind.....hmmmm....how to start....
So, to kick of the proceedings on a "celebratory" note.... ;-) I will start off with Diwali celebrations here.....
The whole day was basically spent resting or roaming here and there within campus.....
Then as evening set in, in our hostel block we lighted the candles, and in the hostel entrance "Diyas" were used to decorate.

In the evening, we had "puja". After that, there was a "light and sound show" - Cracker bursting......
Later on at night we went off to Pal Heights (Restaurant near XIM-B campus) for dinner.....had a blasting time there.....it was some serious fun.......

The Diwali day pics: (Thumbnails can be clicked)

[The "Puja" Decoration]

[Group Snap]

[Guys in Traditional wear]

[In front of Gent's Hostel]

[Cracker Bursting-1]

[Cracker Bursting-2]

[Group snap in Pal Heights]

[The Four - Me (Gaurav), Sachin, Sanket and Shantanu]

That was all for Diwali Celebrations......

Since then life becoming hectic.....
Fifth term nearing end......which directly means, project submissions and presentations happening in full flow.....

Over and above this, my team is participating in L'oreal eStrat Challenge, which is basically an International level contest, with teams from around the world taking part. To keep things simple, here one has to (if the team clears the first stage, which we did) formulate a business strategy for his/her beauty product company so as to attain maximum stock price compared to other virtual companies. The round 1 has just finished, and now round 2 submission of this second stage (playing the actual game) is ongoing. Hoping for the best. This is one helluva amazin' business game........

On a more serious note, with just around 6 weeks left for placement week, resume is being finalized and decision regarding which companies to apply for being done.......

Recent Website search for me yielded an amazing site: ESATO
This site is basically a resource centre and discussion forum for Sony Ericsson mobile users....but others having some mobiles from other manufacturers (NOKIA, SAMSUNG etc.) can also refer to this........

Its amazing to see how fast the camera phones are spreading in India, even the latest Smart Phone offering from Sony Ericsson - P910i is clocking good sales......
Well with camera phone the advantage is that one can click snaps on the move - anytime anyplace.....
This simply shows that mobile phone manufacturers are never gonna have any decline in sales.......they are extremely good at creating needs.........Innovation is the key to their success.......when one feels that the growth for mobile industry will become constant now........just one innovation and the sales graph shows a sharp upward slope.......interesting industry both for engineers and MBAs with marketing to work in........inter company competition levels are real high......the leader Nokia faces a real good competition from both Sony Ericsson and Samsung........

The next interesting stuff, worth tracking is in India GSM vs. CDMA action. Both the clans have reached the war arena (or i should say war tables) yet again......this time the action is on frequency allocation.......both the lobbies are being backed by their respective international lobbies..........this fight is another decider where will future customer for 3G go - to Bharti or to Reliance.......

The thing i liked the most was - by Economic times - Bharti being declared as the Emerging company of the year.......led by my icon - Sunil Mittal......tracking this company can show some real interesting results.....the way it has grown from a Telephone equipment manufacturer to a full blown Telecom Operator.......amazin and it still is growing at a rapid pace (close to 25%of the wireless market in its hand - i hope stats are right).......Bharti has taken some real interesting strategic moves - "OUTSOURCING THE NETWORK" - and the big telecom operators are now watching Bharti - if this yields results.....then they might follow it..........

2004-11-04T01:05:00.000+05:30

THOSE WERE THE BEST HOLS OF MY LIFE

(Tip: Click on the thumbnails to see the original size snaps)
Well, its been a long time since i posted last.
So doing it now.

During Dussehra break had a chance to have one of my best hols in recent years.

I did what I love to do.....all things had to go my way only....

To start with gave a cool surprise at home by reaching at a time (before time)

when they had not expected me to reach and they thought that i would be giving exam in the

examination hall.......

It all started like this:

Train Journey to Delhi:

Sunset captured when on train:

In Train:

Playing "Tota Ud, Maina Ud" on Train:

Great fun durin' the journey home....

Well the hols can be divided into three parts:
Part 1: Purchase of new mobile
Part 2: Trip to Fatehpur Sikri
Part 3: Trip to Andamans

Part 1:
Well for starters I purchased the cool sexy funky looking yet a elegant looking phone....
It is I would say the phone made to look hot but still gentle....
It has features to kill, yet it gives life.
Well had Nokia 7610 in mind but just one look at this mobile and just a couple of its features....
was just enough for me to say this is the phone which I have to get....and got it.
The details on the phone can be found here: Sony Ericsson K700i

Part 2:
Then the next leg was a 400 Km drive to and back from Fatehpur Sikri.
Set out for it at around 5:30 am and reached back home around 3:30 PM....
Spent sometime while going to have some tea and something to eat at Mathura
and then spent time roaming around the fort and then while coming back again stopped at Mathura for lunch.
The best part was of the 400 Kms i had Honda City in my hands for 300Kms.....what more
can a Highwaystar ask for. While coming back was real fun after Mathura from someplace
(the name cannot be recalled the race between few of us started - cars being my City, Safaris, Qualiz, Accent and all).....That was fun and more fun when we entered Faridabad and still trying to clock 100Kmph on short distances to overtake each other......after Faridabad it was like game: Midtown Madness.

Fatehpur Sikri - Dargah:

Part 3:
Well on this we embarked the next evening - first was flight to Chennai.

At Chennai we stayed the airport acco for a night and then early next morning to

dream place of Andamans - landed at Port Blair.

The view of sky from inside the plane while going to Chennai:

The first day there we went for local sight seeing at Port Blair, the main being Cellular Jail and then to

Ross Island.

Cellular Jail: The Inside View:

Ross Island - View from Cellular Jail:

Ross Island Beach:

Sunset from Ross Island:

The Deer at Ross Island:

Also the same day we saw light and sound show @ cellular jail.

Now some bad news for people who wanted me to stay back at cellular jail....

well the cell sizes are much bigger than our hostel rooms, I would have loved to stay there,

but then tha was not possible....This is because when I returned many asked - You didn't stay back

at Cellular Jail.....

The next day ah snorkeling time @ north bay....

we snorkeled saw corals and many varieties of fishes and various other marine life near the upper reaches of the sea. The sea was so calm that one could easily swim in it without any tubes, it seemed like a massive swimming pool.

North Bay - Place for Snorkeling:

Corals:

After Snorkeling we went off to another island Viper Island.....another place where prisoners were hanged.

On the way we could see the Port Blair - port, and various other scenic islands all lush green and also while returning amazing sunset. The pics are below for this leg of the journey........just fell in love with the place. It is so scenic.....can't help saying it (and showing also how beautiful it is)

Port Blair - Port:

Gallows at Viper Island:

Sunset @ Viper Island:

Another View of Sunset:

Another view Sunset:

Well here the day got over and then dinner and sleep......since had to wake up early morning to see sunrise since had missed it this day (though mom n dad had seen and i was sleeping didn't wake up)

Woke up next day around 4:45 am and went down to the hotel's rocky beach.....and waited and waited for sunrise, but what i got was cloudy sky, so could not capture a gud sunrise.

Sun Rise (Clouds Disrupted it):

Then we went of to Havelock Island, the island where scuba diving is done (though in october scuba diving had not started, starts in month of November. The beaches here were lovely and for a change for the first time in Andamans saw a beach where there were some waves.....and water was so clear (shown in one of the pics in which wave has been captured)

Havelock Island Beach No. 7:

The Dolphin Resort beach was amazingly different from the other beach above. This is also in Havelock, but had a great combination of rocky and sandy beach. Water had so many shades of green and blue (try to identify in the snaps below)

Dolphin Resort Beach at Havelock:

When we were leaving for Port Blair from Havelock Island, sunset had started, and could not resist to click it.....

Sunset at Havelock_1:

Sunset at Havelock_2:

The next day we made a trip till Baraghat on a bus. Basically, this trip was done in order to see the tribals - Jarawas who reside on the Port Blair island. Taking their snaps is not permitted so for a change decided to follow rules. For entering the tribal area, a vehicle is not permitted to enter alone, it goes in a set of 7-8 vehicles with a police van at front and also at the end of the convoy. This is basically for security. Though the tribals have been disciplined to a large extent, but still why take risk with tourists. Got to see many Jarawas, think it was a lucky day, spotting them is really difficult. At end of one leg of journey we reached Baraghat. There we decided to do some local sight seeing - so there were two major spots - Tota Tikri and Mud Island Volcano. The journey to Tota Tikri (Parrot Island) is done on a small canoe like motor boat. The Journey is amazing, travelling through untouched greeneries of the island. Though we were in open sea, but there were so many islands small and medium sized together that the effect of the sea had been transformed into a feeling of backwaters. It was beautiful. About Tota Tikri it is said that the island has a speciality that all the mangrove trees there have been trimmed by Parrots themselves and thus the island looks like a huge table. The pic is below.

Then there was Mud Volcano, these are rare volcanoes, and this one was an active volcano and erupted last year also. The next nearest volcanoes are over 2o000Kms in Russia and in US. About mud volcano, the detail is given in one pic below.

AT BARAGHAT:

Tota Tikri or Parrot Island:

Mud Volcano:

About Mud Volcano:

Mud Volcano Beach:

That was our last day of trip, we came back and had dinner and slept of at our pad in Port Blair. The next day we left for Chennai. From Chennai we went to Tirupathi for darshan, and stayed there overnight had darshan early morning around 5:30 am (we were in queue from 4am - with special tickets). then that day itself we came back to Chennai and had an evening flight from Chennai to Delhi. We reached Delhi around 8:30 pm and from there went straight to station, to catch my train to Bhubaneswar. The trip was real fun. To Andamans i still wanna go, lovely place........missed scuba there, and i have to do that......so someday i will be there again....

Our Pad in Port Blair (Hotel Sinclair):

On Route to Tirumala (Tirupathi Temple):

Tirumala at Night:

Some Family Snaps:

Mom, Bro and Dad

Mom and me in a cell in Cellular Jail

Dad, Bro, Mom and Me on Viper Island

Mom, Dad and Bro as soon as we reached Havelock Island

Me, Bro and Mom

Snaps Taken using Mobile:

Sky while returning from Chennai to Delhi (from inside the plane):

Andaman from Sky:

Chennai Coastline:

Chennai from Sky:

Waterfall at the start of Tirumala road:

Sunset on a Railway Station:

Just Like That:

2004-09-12T15:24:00.000+05:30

MAKING OF 2/3RD OF AN MBA

Voila....today i am 2/3rd an MBA or to be stated in better terms,
i am 4/6th an MBA.....
Well MBA does this to everyone...everyone doing MBA starts to put
same thing in as many ratios as possible...haahhaaa

Hota Hai

So todays Dish is MBA....

Ingredients:
- 6 months of preparation for the entrance....
- Determination
- Luck
- Cool
- Concentration
- Attitude
- Confidence

Process:
Well this is the interesting part....
Mix 6 months of preparation with determination, concentration, attitude and cool and stir it hard.
It is not necessary that they actually mix well and none of them is identifiable in the mixture....
If it were smooth, then where will the ingredient "Luck" figure in.
After this mixture is prepared, you need to do a quality check on it, to test whether it meets minimum standards or not. Here is where the "Luck" figures in. A lot of "Luck" is required to pass this phase
and a person's cool is also tested here.

If you are not lucky, keep in mind MBA is not the end of the world,
from the Horse's mouth "MBA's SUCK"

But if you are lucky,
no need to jump around, you were just luckier than others....
clearing test is not enough....

So, next process is Group Discussion and Interview....
My personal belief here is to keep oneself updated on general awareness thats all...
Also confidence is needed.....
So here mix confidence in the mixture....

Here now again comes luck factor when final admission results are given out....
If u succeed good enough,
if u don't u can have another shot, and this is not the end....

Now comes life at B-School,
Ok the work load sucks big time.....
but its just a small part of life...
What u really are in a B-School is nothing more that our favourite term "VALUE ADDITION"

What makes one survive the B-School life is Attitude, Cool, Confidence, Determination,
and most important of all, "THE FRIEND CIRCLE".

Studying is secondary in a B-School,
though there might be studious people around you.....
but then someone has to get high grades also na....

Assignments are there, classes are there (sleep in class also exists),
but then early morning (1 AM) tennis games or TT games are real fun....

Making best use of LAN, Age of Empires, NFS and Unreal Tournament will rule....

MBA is best done in hostels, this is because in hostels only is the real MBA learnin done.....
Here is where one is interacting with max people......here is where everyone tends to
develop on interpersonal skills and here is where learning in groups is facilitated....

Exams come and go, after first term exam all exams will look like a nice phase,
they will look like breaks from normal schedule and most of us watch loads of
movies during this period.....

Its the attitude, determination and cool (and not to forget Luck - especially during exams) to
become a MBA.....

well i still have to tread on the 1/3rd of the path left for me to cover......2 sems, a placement season, Xpressions, Maxinations, more of AOE games, 4 term exams (movie mania session),
wow..loads to look forward to.....and maybe a trip to north-east after 6th term end exams....
and den coming back to XIM-B for convocation.....

Looking forward to all this....
Making of an MBA surely is interesting........
Its the lifestyle which makes MBA out of a person, not the studies he does.....

dats all rest u all put in comments.......

2004-09-05T15:27:00.000+05:30

THE RISE OF THE DRAGON

When I had taken a decision that XIM-B was a place to be in, it was not merely a decision based on all admits I had, it was a decision in which I had mapped my personal attributes with the instis (one can develop most at an institute with whom they match perfectly). The decision was taken very early, while instis were being shortlisted. The Xavier tag...itself is a big influencer....I atleast once inmy life wanted to get this association....

Then biggest of all, I while shortlisting, personally had faith that XIM-B is a institute which has been highly under-rated (just because its in Bhubaneswar - people thought companies would not come here)....
But, then it had built a different kind of reputation, rapidly rising in ranks and still not being rated highly by people (because they have not heard about it - lesser mortals)...I loved it....it was a big attraction....

When dragon is sleeping calmly, no one seems to notice it, but when it slowly wakes up and starts making moves (aggressive ones), everyone seems to take note....some on a good note and others just stare in disbelief (How can XIMB be there?)....

This is what I would say our institute has done. It has woken up.....

Since we entered, we decided to take on the aggressive stance.

Kudos to both Placement Committee and Media Committee for getting XIM-B the dragon to wake up (yes this is just wakening up).....

With Business World top 10 ranking, people though its just a mistake by one mag, then comes AIMA-Business Standard survey, which states that XIM-B enters the Super-league category, now this cannot be a mistake from two surveys.....

These rankings are not just one off, there is a cumulative set of activities over the years which have led us here....

Well evolution is a way of life, so I would say we are still evoluting while others need to learn to cope with changes.....

Even our immediate seniors if they today visit campus, they will see change.....

I also don't believe in the rankings, but then what has to be seen in them are the patterns and similarities....

Hope to see XIM-B grow much more bigger in future....

From far away, it may seem, how active can life be in XIM-B....

well u have to be here to Xperience it.....

So, if u wanna Xperience, your chance lies in clicking here.

2004-08-24T11:17:00.000+05:30

The Business Excellence Awards for B-Schools has been formally launched....
Its the game which is different from other Business Games....
For details click here.

Come play the game during Xpressions at XIM-B

Important dates:
10th September: Submission of Papers
20th September: Declaration of Results
2nd October: Xpressions starts......and the other phases of game will be played on campus

The Paper topics are given on the link given above....

The preparation for war kicks off...........

2004-08-16T13:22:00.000+05:30

SOME MORE SNAPSHOTS.....

While writin this post its rainin like nethin here.....
and raindrops surely are big........
well here r some more pics.......
dis time of the open sky......
the view is from my hostel block roof.....
unlike last time wich were directly from my room

Source: my digicam
View: where the sun shud rise on a new day

Source: my digicam
View: The area behind my institute

Source: my digicam
View: where the sun shud rise on a new day

Well the place is so serene and calm....i wud say this is the closest to nature that todays Homo Sapien can survive easily....

So much of greenery around, sometimes u can even spot those beautiful creatures called snakes roaming around in campus.....best place to spot them is the area around the tennis court.....

thats all for now......

2004-08-13T02:57:00.000+05:30

BEA B Schools - Kurukshetra

It's a jungle out there. Only the fittest and the mightiest can survive. In today's corporate battles, one requires a solid armament of critical hard skills that can make the difference between affluence and perdition.

BEA B Schools, as the major event is called, is a game open to all B-Schools around India. It kicks off with an intensely fought paper competition between the teams that are taking part. The victors of this round match wits against each other in a quiz. And finally, the champions of the quiz move out to play one of the biggest and most unique battles ever fought on this planet .. They play Kurukshetra.

Kurukshetra is a real-time physical simulation game where teams are required to muster up all the knowledge they have about fields as diverse as Marketing, Finance, Systems, Operations and HR. They play the game over quarters trying to maximize their returns by beating the market through sheer understanding and application of concepts.

The game drew a tremendous response in its second year last year. Participants in the game came from a myriad of the Top B-schools viz. IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, XLRI, MDI, NITIE, IIFT and SP Jain.

The countdown for the Battle Royalé has begun. It is just a matter of time now, before the warriors assemble to fight out a war like none other..

Kurukshetra 2004

P.S.: The game is part of Xpressions - Annual fest of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.....

2004-08-13T02:45:00.000+05:30

FRIDAY THE 13th

Today is Friday the 13th....so following is some info wich i found about the history of Friday the 13th......the Devils day......
(SOURCE: www.howstuffworks.com)

Let's look at this objectively for a second:

In order to organize time, human beings created calendars.
As part of today's dominate calendar system, every year is divided into 12 periods called months, consisting of roughly 30 days each.
All days are also grouped into sets of seven, called weeks.
In the Western world, a significant chunk of the population suspects bad things will happen whenever the 13th day of a month occurs on the day of the week called Friday.

Like many human beliefs, the fear of Friday the 13th (known as paraskevidekatriaphobia) isn't exactly grounded in scientific logic. But the really strange thing is that most of the people who believe the day is unlucky offer no explanation at all, logical or illogical. As with most superstitions, people fear Friday the 13th for its own sake, without any need for background information.

The superstition does have deep, compelling roots, however, and the origins help explain why the belief is so widespread today. In this article, we'll look at some of the interesting stories behind this unluckiest of days.

The Christian Tradition
The fear of Friday the 13th stems from two separate fears -- the fear of the number 13 and the fear of Fridays. Both fears have deep roots in Western culture, most notably in Christian theology.

Thirteen is significant to Christians because it is the number of people who were present at the Last Supper (Jesus and his 12 apostles). Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th member of the party to arrive.

Christians have traditionally been wary of Fridays because Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Additionally, some theologians hold that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit on a Friday, and that the Great Flood began on a Friday. In the past, many Christians would never begin any new project or trip on a Friday, fearing they would be doomed from the start.

Sailors were particularly superstitious in this regard, often refusing to ship out on a Friday. According to unverified legend, the British Navy commissioned a ship in the 1800s called H.M.S. Friday, in order to quell the superstition. The navy selected the crew on a Friday, launched the ship on a Friday and even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's captain. Then, one Friday morning, the ship set off on its maiden voyage... and disappeared forever. A similar, entirely factual story is the harrowing flight of Apollo 13.

Some historians suggest the Christian distrust of Fridays is actually linked to the early Catholic Church's overall supression of pagan religions and women. In the Roman calendar, Friday was devoted to Venus, the goddess of love. When Norsemen adapted the calendar, they named the day after Frigg, or Freya, Norse goddesses connected to love and sex. Both of these strong female figures once posed a threat to male-dominated Christianity, the theory goes, so the Christian church vilified the day named after them.

This characterization may also have played a part in the fear of the number 13. It was said that Frigg would often join a coven of witches, normally a group of 12, bringing the total to 13. This idea may have originated with the Christian Church itself; it's impossible to verify the exact origins of most folklore. A similar Christian legend holds that 13 is unholy because it signifies the gathering of 12 witches and the devil.

The number 13 could also have been considered pagan because there are 13 months in the pagan lunar calendar. The lunar calendar also corresponds to the human menstrual cycle, connecting the number to femininity.

In the next section, we'll find out about some other stories behind Friday the 13th.

Other Traditions
The Christian perspective on Friday and 13 is the most relevant today, but it's only one part of the Friday the 13th tradition.

Some trace the infamy of the number 13 back to ancient Norse culture. In Norse mythology, the beloved hero Balder was killed at a banquet by the mischievous god Loki, who crashed the party of twelve, bringing the group to 13. This story, as well as the story of the Last Supper, led to one of the most entrenched 13-related beliefs: You should never sit down to a meal in a group of 13.

Another significant piece of the legend is a particularly bad Friday the 13th that occurred in the middle ages. On a Friday the 13th in 1306, King Philip of France arrested the revered Knights Templar and began torturing them, marking the occasion as a day of evil. Check out this site to learn more.

Both Friday and the number 13 were once closely associated with capital punishment. In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose.

Ultimately, the complex folklore of Friday the 13th doesn't have much to do with people's fears today. The fear has much more to do with personal experience. People learn at a young age that Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky, for whatever reason, and then they look for evidence that the legend is true. The evidence isn't hard to come by, of course. If you get in a car wreck on one Friday the 13th, lose your wallet, or even spill your coffee, that day will probably stay with you. But if you think about it, bad things, big and small, happen all the time. If you're looking for bad luck on Friday the 13th, you'll probably find it.

2004-08-11T22:24:00.000+05:30

WHAT A DAY.....

Prakruti - the nature club of XIMB got a formal inaugration
Prakruti is a club, of which i was one of the ten founder members.....
it all started as an Organizational behavior project....
today WWF and Prakruti are working together and we are open to
more such collaborations....
As of now the club is handled by Rural Management students, with us also
participating in its activities.......(actually trying to now)
Hope the club LIVES ON........
Sometimes its great to let ur wild side out....... ;)

Secondly, for any Microsoft basher like me....wat can be the best thing.....
to read an article where Microsoft is termed as big old man being targetted
by various youngsters around it on various fronts......
well its like Microsoft has two flagship products which are mainstay of its business....
Microsoft Office and Windows OS.....
Both have just received minor updates and cosmetic changes and
released as new versions.......none are too gud or i must say amazing as what one
may expect from a organization like Microsoft....
Their softwares today are like patched clothes which may come apart any time....
and this can be seen from various virus attacks and crashes which one experiences
with MS products......
Today they are on defensive (for the first time - I AM HAPPY)....claiming that their OS
overall cheaper than Linux and stuff like this......
Their browser doesnt fare better than Opera/Netscape/Mozilla.........mind that Mozilla is
not even at version 1.0, its in testing phase and outperforms IE like anything......
To avoid big customers from shifting to open source MS has been cutting rates of its
products on case to case basis......
People are slowly shifting towards the Open Source generation of products......which
unexpectedly are much stable and in many cases much better......
Overall MS is facing attack on various fronts from companies like IBM, Opensource,
Google, Sun Microsystems, and many other similar firms which are churning out better
products at cheaper costs and moreover people are shifting towards them now........

Fingers crossed........hoping for the big old man to come down finally......
Also.....their products launch dates are being postponed...they are not sure whether they
should launch them or not.....they have postponed launch of new Windows till 2006 as of now.......

While this all happens I am enjoying this......using Windows 98 (since insti asks us to be on
Windows machine) and using Mozilla (the best browser i have ever used), listening to songs
over Winamp (not Windows Media Player)........

P.S.: will try to put up the snap of the inaugration soon......
wait till next post
Apurv did u get ur update finally yet again n dis time rapid updates ;)