Bye Bye 2010 and Welcome 2011

Its another 365 days gone by , as we put full stop to 2010 and welcome another 365 days.

Has the 365 days that has gone by been any different from the previous? Yes, am sure it was.

2010 has been a very mixed year for me . A year which has had its own share of success and failures. The below is probably a good summary.

To start with i think i became more disciplined , for the first time ever i tracked my personal goals. I had become more tech savvy in the whole process not by leaps and bounds but by a reasonable margin.

There were lot of lessons learnt on the way and also found out the real people who actually shape my life. Love has still eluded me this year , so its still the same with me as am yet to find my better half.

The realization of life moving ahead of me hit my mind hard , so i slowed down to enjoy the beauty of life , realizing that just working and earning money isn't important, there are other things in life that need to be given time for.

During the previous years, Whenever hard times came by , i asked the almighty why me? For a change i learnt that when i succeed i should also ask him ' why me' as i found out that how fortunate i am as compared to the millions of people who suffer every day.

This year has also been exemplified by the art of giving , the understanding of the fact that the more you give , the more happy you are , is this pursuit of happiness?may be you could call it that way.

The excitement of the sporting season cannot be undermined, as it showed sports can bring nations and culture closer than one can ever imagine and i watched a F1 grand prix live at the Circuit , which still makes me smile. That has been a dream come true.

Had a reasonable travelful year as there were places on this earth which i had visited for the first ever time. Had unique opportunity to try out various cuisine's .

The first half of the year and the second half of the year had been diametrically opposite to me, i enjoyed and succeeded in the first half of the year and i struggled and almost failed in the second half, however the second half thought me very valuable lessons in life.

As the world diversifies itself and new technologies are found , its increasingly hard to slow down and the pace of life is only going to get ever faster , am afraid that in this pace we might loose the underlying values of human life.

In the world of movies which are so surreal and fictitious , sometimes there are those rare gems which waves magic and gets the human emotions to its edge , i did enjoy those rare movies this year.

There is a saying ' Katrathu Kai Allavu , Kallathathu Ulag Allavu' , this translates to ' What you have learnt is just a handful and what you need to learn is a world out there' , i understood its importance this year as i learnt to iron my clothes, learn to fit an electric bulb or for that matter learnt to make the batter for pancakes, this year has been all about learning.

In one of the major south Indian movie, a statement is made to this hero ' Sir, you are Great' . The Hero laughs and retaliates back to the common man ' You fool, the man who bought me to his world ' the almighty' is great'. This statement is funny and the meaning is so obvious but to understand the meaning a quick walk across a crowded city would be more than enough to affirm the statement, as i walk past so many people, places each and everyday i enjoy the charisma of the world and the genius behind the man who created it.

As i conclude 2010 and welcome 2011 , am sure its going to be another 365 different days. I step forward with confidence because i have had a great journey in 2010 in which i have learnt invaluable lessons which are going to shape the next 365 days.

As you read this , you are going to think , hey that's similar to my experience , well after all am one among you, the common man.

I wish all of you a very happy new year. See you 2010, welcome 2011.

Everything Comes to a Standstill

You don't need to be too proud if you have found out what am intending to write.

Yes , its Christmas and leading up to end of year, everything has slowed down. I am in Poole (UK) over Christmas period and life has ground to a halt.

Temperature has plummeted to -7 degrees which doesn't help either. I literally mean life has become a standstill. All shops are closed and if you need essential food items either you should have stocked it or wait until shops open on 27th .

To my surprise people here take Christmas day very seriously , its all about family , many people travel to their mothers and dads place or get -together in their friends place. Everything slowed down from last week.

Work in office was just crawling , there was no hustle and bustle . There was no sense of any urgency, i think its the only time of the year procrastination isn't a sin and many of the office disciplines probably doesn't apply.

I am pleasantly surprised with this break and enjoying the four long days of holiday after what has been a grueling year.

Life will come back to normal from Wednesday next week until then , to all you folks enjoy the Christmas break.

Very Nice and a Mice weekend

Didn't have any reasonable topic to blog on so i thought i would blog about the weekend.

It was a very nice and a mice weekend , let me first say the nice part and then the mice part.

This weekend i had a rendezvous between me and one of my very good friend Rama. He works for a company here and agreed to come over for this weekend.

As always when two old time friends meet, there is an element of excitement in the air. Ours was no different and the laughs started right from the start. Rama was due to come on Friday night , he had messaged me stating that he would leave his place at 7:40 and would reach my place by 10:00, i mis-read the 7:40 as 17:40. Due to this misunderstanding; i reached home early from office to prepare dinner , only to find out that Rama was due to start at 7:40 and not 17:40 .

Anyway , no harm done. He reached a junction and called me. I picked the call and said to him that he give me a call when he reaches a place known to both of us.

Rama misunderstood this and got down at the place where i asked him to call me , hence i had to wait in the freezing cold near my train station. Eventually he made it and we had a great laugh about the mis-understading in communication.

The night went by with usual banter between two friends and catching up with things in our lives.

On Saturday , Rama, another neighbour of mine who was mutual friend of us and myself went shopping .Before that we payed our respects to Lord Krishna at an ISKCON temple, once we made our offerings we came down for a solid lunch, although it was touch expensive but was worth it and we didn't mind it.

We just walked throughout the day shopping and by five in the evening we were exhausted . We decided to head back home. Back home , we relaxed and had good dinner watching a hillarious movie. It made for a great Saturday. Sunday was just relaxing .

As the day came to a close , myself and Rama had a good dinner at Pizza hut . As i bid adieu for him at the bus station , reality hit me that next week was round the corner and its back to work from tomorrow.

It was a great weekend.

Coming to the mice story , somehow in this cold , mice has got into my apartment. Neither do they know how to get out of my apartment , nor do i know how to get rid of them. Iam keeping my fingers crossed that they don't do damage any cable lines in the apartment. Hoping to get someone from the concierge or the estate agents to fix this issue tomorrow.

All in all , has been a nice and a mice weekend for me.

Holidays

Everyone looks forward to it and am no exception.

I booked my holidays early in september to go back to Chennai. All flights booked, was so eager to be back home and spend quality time at home.

I was so looking forward to it that the joy of looking forward to it just consumed my days leading up to the holidays.

The D day did come, when i reached home the joy for my parents was immense in seeing me after close to six months.

I had thought well this would be one of those trips where i stay back home, relax and eat sumptuous home made food .

How wrong i was ! I had ten days in hand and a zillion odd people to meet and truck loads of activities to complete before i was back.

The immense pressure to make sure that i meet everyone who i needed to was driving me crazy.

To be honest i already knew i had no chance to meet everyone.

Finally my holidays was over even before i could really enjoy it.

Having said that , i did learn something important. We are very close knit society , when i say 'we' i mean Indian's.

Why do i say it. I was stuck by the number of people calling me and speaking to me and asking me how i was doing.

Its amazing to see , even how old colleagues also call you and wish you luck and ask about how you were doing. I was stuck on how many people invited me for lunch and dinner. Fantastic.

Now iam back and sitting in my apartment and writing this blog , i truly miss my home and people.

Although it was a frenzied trip but there was beauty in that chaos and warmth in all the hurry.

To round it up, in all this pace of my holidays i completely forgot what had happened in office , nobody contacted me and my blackberry wasn't working .What more could i have asked for .

I didn't relax but i did enjoy all the company. I must admit, i am so overwhelmed to see so many well wishers. Some times staying away shows oneself the true worth of people around.

Take care.

Note:- Sorry for not blogging for close to a month, now you know the reason.

The World is Divided in their views of Life

Very Obvious.

I wanted to just summarize two events which crossed my path during the past two weeks.

While one part of the world is starving and leading a life in absolute misery while the other is enjoying the best the nature had to offer them ;like clean air, water and a good livelihood.

Why did such a rude awakening come to me all of a sudden?

I was in a restaurant a week ago along with a mate of mine and just while we were seated by the polite looking waitress, my mate pulled out a small plastic bottle.

I was stunned looking at the small bottle and asked him what it was . He looked at me and replied , the world is dirty and this is a lotion to clean the hand. I was genuinely intrigued by advances in medical sciences and technology, however, the reply came as a thunderbolt and took me by surprise.

The next event was on Monday this week, when couple of people in my office were so annoyed that their keyboard was dirty and bought in soft wipes to clean that and were complaining relentlessly.

I was just stupefied.

I looked at the event in utter dismay. The only thought that occurred to me seeing it was " Half the world across people cannot clean themselves even for their basic needs and here they seem to be complaining about keyboard not being clean". What else could i possibly think?

I come from a place where people try to be clean but there isn't a genuine opportunity to follow that. Leave that aside , how many times in a day that we see people not having clean environments but still put up a brave face to get on with their daily chores of work with a happy face.

Its such a disparity in this world , where one side is annoyed that their keyboard or the place in a restaurant is dirty , while in the other side , people live in shanty places and make the best of what they have.

Both of them strive for the same thing in life " Happiness" , however their views of life are poles apart and each one views life in a completely different manner .

Such an irony!

Watch out next blog - God is Great but i think he is Unfair.

x,2x,2x^2,2x^3,2x^4:)

Weirdo.

What kind of a title is this?

OK let me explain what that "X" in the title is and then you'll understand what i want to write and why a smiley at the end of the title.

The "X" is the number of people that i see in a bar in the city of London on a Monday evening and the comma separates the start of the next day.

It still fascinates me how the number of people in a bar explodes as the week goes by. By Friday evening as can been seen from the title, it is the melting pot of just people.

A bar hosts people from all walks of life right from the most affluent to the modest, you can see a man drinking a Budvar or the most expensive malted whisky. No religion, no creed, caste or sex . There is no discrimination.

To say you the truth, i have now become party to this Friday mela. I have been going to a bar every Friday for the last few weeks.

What i typically find is that its a great place to gossip and unwind. One can see that people start slow and end on a high, not to forget that people start early and stay as late as possible.

If one can keep ears open, its easy to find out what is happening in the city, in my view its also a newsroom but miles away from the flashy studios but serves its purpose.

The ambiance of a bar is key to its success, its that one which brings in an eclectic mix of emotions to all those who are around.

The ambiance is the oxygen of a bar , the blood are the drinks.

The ambiance and the buzz makes it a magical place and with a chilled drink in hand , what better place on earth to live on a Friday night.

Not to miss out those chicks who add to the irresistible charm of the place.

The biggest plus in a bar is that every one's truth comes out , couple of drinks down and all of them speak straight from the heart. That's one of the most interesting part that i can think of going to a bar.

Its a great place to relax , if one can manage oneself within limits, a visit to a bar isn't that unreasonable nor a taboo.

It can be one of the happiest place for a reunion or even to talk serious business or while away time or just to be mischievous.

Time just flies sitting in a bar. Simply a great place but with a different setting.

Hang-on if you have by now thought when did this guy start drinking , you are grossly mistaken. Who in the world said that one need to only drink alcohol in a bar, a creamy thick latte is still possible.

I have been going to the bar just to be a part of this culture and true to the word drinking is a part of living here. I can be the only person to have been to a bar to drink a hot latte and that too seven consecutive weeks in a row.

Am sure that made you smile.

Let Go!

What a powerful word.

Why did i choose this as a title of my blog and what on earth am i going to write. Read on.

As humans we are packed with emotions, this emotion is what ticks the world. Without these emotion's we would be mere machine.

That being said , this emotion is what brings all the peril.

Its quite clear that we crave for things be it happiness, love, care, affection , new gadgets ... the list is endless.

This emotion defies logic , sometimes we know we cannot get it but still we crave for it. Why? we never think why, i know i cannot get it but why am i craving. Why is there no application of Brain, why no commonsense?

A classic example is a failed love. The person in question knows that its a lost case and she will not be back but the heart still craves for her. Its emotional trauma. Completely oblivious to the fact that the world around him is moving on , this emotional trauma crushes him with no end in sight.

I took the above example as its much easier to explain and put it into a context.

Its pointless to keep staring at the phone to see if that 'sms' would come from her. We just sit there and waste time all in the name of emotion.

Emotion to the right level is perfect, a step too far can be detrimental. I mean detrimental in every sense of the word.

Sometimes as often said, we need to step back and say ' let go'. Its easier said than done but it works magic , lightens the heart and gets the senses back to normal from illusion.

Once an individual let's go of that emotional attachment, all the pain starts to disappear slowly. Iam not saying that world will change upside down but its a step forward in the better direction.

Letting go of something hurts , ask any couple they would explain that to you , ask a child how much it felt seeing to loose the most cherished toy, ask a parent how much it meant marrying the daughter away, ask a person how much it means to loose a friend.

The answer in most case is always - ' This is the single biggest pain in my life?'

It hurts but lets come to reality and face it . Let go of the emotions and we should be fine and clear in our head .

Let's be more practical and not be tied down to the clutches of the sheer emotional bonding.

I dare not say that we shouldn't have emotional bonding at all but all i say is that we need to have it in the right quantity.

Some times in life , we need to say ' Let Go' . If you purely cherish it , things would come back to you.

Doesn't this contradict the statement ' Chase your dream'. I think it does slightly but when you let go of things , one gets more energy and clearer thoughts which would enable one to achieve their ultimate goal.

Am sure lot of people would have a wide view on this and most importantly i am unable to put my thoughts convincingly. It is quite apparent that the flow isn't too coherent and i could see holes in my logical break down of this problem but i think i have done reasonably well to put my thoughts across.

Don't get crushed under the weight of emotion, LET GO!

Have i tried it in recent past - YES . Did i succeed - No, would i try again - Yes.

Chaos

That word brings great emotions to lot of people , i want to write about the beauty in Chaos and the opportunity that it brings.

Of course realms has been written about how the recent financial crisis played out and how the chaos presented nice opportunity to players such as JP Morgan and Barclays.

I don't want to write about that but i actually want to write about the beauty of chaos in a ' market'. Some could argue that its no different from financial markets but for me normal markets are the mother of any other markets and i would like to focus on a day to day markets also called Mandi's.

Yesterday evening i went to buy my weekly groceries, i went to a large up-market super market store. Everything was in order, i could see signages and one could not miss the item that need to be bought.

I had a list of things that i had to buy , just went into the market and picked up the things , came off to the counter , paid the bill. All done in less than thirty minutes.

I just thought that was nice and easy, while i was just coming off, i just took a wrong turn and wandered off into a long corridor. When i came off the corridor, it was all chaos all that i could hear was frantic shouts and lots of people walking up and down.

I was taken aback , i could not understand what this was and why are so many people here and what is this noise all about.

Little did i realize that i had stepped into one of the largest weekly markets. I watched in utter dismay the voices that rose and the increased decible levels.

Even in the chaos of a free market , i could spot some savvy dealers forging very good deals, be it in selling old mobiles or selling few kilos of potato's. I could clearly see traders charming the buyers with improvised verses and also saw people who had already done great bargain deals.

It was commotion in short but not a sort that one need to be alarmed to but one where there is raw power of buying and selling.

As i stood there , i was just wandering off in my mind to villages in India where such weekly markets were the norm , i understood how much those markets were making India tick.

Its small in comparison to big supermarkets but i think i have fallen in love with the raw selling power of the merchants and the intelligent buyer spotting opportunity to make that extra savings.

I really did like it and i was watching the whole fun for almost an hour.

It was chaos all the way until Five in the evening , when order returned in the form of closure of markets for the day when all merchants had done the deals and many people were happy that they got what they wanted and even in those chaotic moments, there was beauty and opportunity.

It was true reflection of human spirit. Boy did i love it and left shaking my head with a big smile on my face.

Pure reflection of free market forces in action where supply and demand are the king.

Free market theorists would love this post!!!

When Responsibility Strikes.

A change in my attitude towards many things sparked off this blog.

Where do i start? I'll go slowly and one by one.

Never ever in how many ever years have i eaten food which was cooked in the morning at night, my mom never asked me because she knew i didn't like it . Even at the darkest hours , this was one thing that was never compromised.

Never before i had thought how much provisions someone need to buy for running a house

Never before i had thought how much of a task it is to balance the budget, although both Vijay Lavate and Suresh have given me enough thoughts about it and Suresh even went to the extent of teaching me how one can compute the current worth of oneself off the back of the hands but i never took that seriously.

Never before had i thought can i buy this stuff next month rather than this month?

I have covered most of the above scenarios in my previous blogs but in this one i want to delve into the food part of the above sequel.

Has it suddenly occurred to me that food is valuable and there are a zillion more people out there in the cold who don't have even a bowl of porridge? Or has it occurred to me that wars can erupt when food isn't available?

These are all known things and not new to me, so what has changed in the last couple of months that has radically altered my habit of storing food items in the fridge and re-heat them to be served later. This was unthinkable a couple of months ago, i wonder what has changed?

While i sit back and think , something suddenly strikes my face and tells me the cold truth. " You are now taking care of yourself".

I counter argue and say i have always been taking care of myself, isn't it? The voice says "Well, you are now taking care of yourself". This relentless press about me taking care of myself gets me nervous and got to a point where i said to myself maybe that voice is true.

I sat back with a hot cup of coffee to think about it , my mind raced to think ' what is it about that statement that is so striking , am not getting the point but it strikes me as true'. There was that commotion in my mind which only experience can explain and not words.

Sitting there and going through the statement and i began to think through it in detail.

Ah! the answer comes in a flash not as a movie or whatever , but in a single word ' Responsibility'.

Yes, that's the answer to the above conundrum that i was looking for. All along my mother used to be responsible for everything and she managed everything for me and i never bothered about how much of an effort it was to cook.

Now that i cook all for myself , the attitude of throwing away the last portions of the food has changed , it could be a salad made in the morning to a good sambar made for lunch . The responsibility of me cooking for myself has radically altered my view of eating food for dinner that was cooked for the mornings breakfast.

Lesson learnt is that when responsibility strikes, attitude towards things changes accordingly , this confirms to the old tamil saying , which i would like to put it in a dialogue sequel.

Father :- Sir , my son isn't responsible and doesn't take care of himself or us, he is just loitering around

Relative/friend:- Don't worry , get him married , when he has responsibility , it will all be OK.

Whether the bride changes anything to this poor man's life or not is debatable, but in countless instances, the sheer attitude towards life changes after marriage , why ? It's just because of added responsibility.

You could argue that my experience tell's that i didn't have common sense before and now i have but that's not the point that i wished to illustrate through this example , all i wanted to say was that when responsibility comes , attitude changes.

Learning to Eat With a Chop Stick

Self explanatory title.

Yes, i learnt to eat using a chop stick. Although the thought of eating food in a chop stick intimidates people but it actually isn't that difficult as what you think it is. That's what i found out .

What makes it interesting effort is what you eat with it, do you eat rice, noodles with it or go with food which are bigger in size?

For a novice , if you try eating rice or noodles with chop stick , well forget it, you are going to have an absolute nightmare.

So coming to story at hand or event that happened today.

I went to a Japanese food chain along with a colleague of mine for dinner. This was the second time iam going to a Japanese restaurant. The first time i went i just ate with spoons but this time i wanted to try eating with chopsticks.

We had ordered dumplings to start with, the dish came in , looked awesome but tricky part was , i was given a chop stick to eat. My colleague thought me how to use it , on the first try it didn't work the way it had to and on the next try, yeps all up and running. I finished all the dumplings six of them in my portion without spilling anything. That was quite an achievement for a first timer. I was proud of myself.

Then the main course of rice with potatoes came in , it was appealing but instead of being a hero and try to eat it with chopsticks, i was conservative and asked for a spoon and a fork. Job done.

Although i learnt to eat using a chop stick but i would like to try and eat either noodles or rice using it. Well , next time i will try that.

It was an interesting experience.

Internet My Saviour

What , Internet saved you ..... from????

Ok ok, it saved me from starving. This is what happened.

Joe came back from office all tired , looking to cook a nice meal and eat. The choice was zeroed down to rice and sabzi.

Ok i get cracking with cutting the vegetables a mix of tomato,capsicum and onions . All done and dusted in fifteen minutes , poured the oil in the pan which was on a light sim heat. Once heated , added few mustard seeds , typical southie cooking.

Once done , added onions and stirred it until crimson brown , then went in capsicum and then tomato and all masala. So subzi ready in less than 25 minutes. Hot hot and neat, ready to eat.

Only to realize that i forgot to cook the rice , in a hurry i made sure i washed the rice and got it ready to go into my new Panasonic Microwave , brand new .

Right , rice is in its microwave cookable vessel , in it goes into the microwave , alas how do i operate the new microwave?

I have never used this model before , all funcky new stuff . I search for the manual and to my horror , i dont find it .

I search every where , it just skips my eyes. One hour of frantic search , toying around the buttons just provide a futile attempt, only irritation and anger was left.

I almost gave up , i was angry and upset. Just as i turned around to give-up my Mac magic shone bright oh a split second idea, get to the internet and search for online manual.

Open the laptop, connect the internet and open google, type the search ' Panasonic Microwave Manuals'. Off its goes , returns with what i need. I still need to find the right manual for my model, which was another five minute search and once i had all the details , it was just matter of minutes to find the manual.

All done , cooking underway . After about two and half hours hot food was ready , had to re-heat my Sabzi .

Superb Dinner for a starving stomach , just that it was too late in the night but nevertheless worth all the effort and went to sleep saying that was good and all extra calories that i built up , i can loose in a visit to gym :)

Internet my saviour , technology at its very best.

A VS A

What a wierd title , that's what you are thinking.

The first A in the title stands for Aptitude and the second A stands for attitude.

I just wanted to pen down something on these two A's and try and deduce which one is required more to succeed in life , this topic came to mind as i watched a young eighteen year old present his business case in the TV show ' Dragons Den'.

All of us every man or woman would love to have awesome aptitude or are attracted to people with awesome aptitude. Its quite true that aptitude matters quite a lot and in most important places.

Wait a minute does that mean aptitude makes you the person you are and take you places ? Think again.

This eighteen year boy who i mentioned earlier had a good idea about a small piece of gadget which simplifies Pizza making process but was unable to articulate the business proposition . He lost the pitch and got some good advice from the panel.

What hit me like a rock was the way in which he took the whole event , he walked away cooly as if nothing had happened. I was impressed by his positive attitude.

History has quite a lot of examples of where attitude scored over aptitude. Am absolutely convinced that having very average aptitude and a great positive attitude is a killer combination than a great aptitude and a shoddy attitude. I guess you all will agree.

Positive attitude matters the most , one cannot achieve things only with a great aptitude.

Priority Vs Urge to Buy

You all know am a big fan of Apple products.

Apart from being a big apple fan , in general i found out something quite interesting in the way our human brian behaves.

There is always this urge to buy or do things and not always the urge succeeds, as you will see from my example.

The current urge for me is to buy an Iphone 4. In normal circumstances being what iam , i would have bought it by now and not waited , more out of impulse. However, when the human brian looks at urge vs priority, it looks like the priority part of the brian looms large than the urge part.

Example being, my priority to set-up my house vs buying an iphone. Setting up my house is far more important and the iphone can wait for obvious reasons. I think this act of the brian where priority wins over urge is what we call common sense.

Looks like it. So far i have kept my urge to the very minimum and i've outwitted my urge because of my pressing priority of setting up my house.

So far so good, don't really know how long this is going to last. Lets see.

Loneliness

Dictionary defines Loneliness as -without companions or solitary, it also maps it to a state of being sad.

Precise definition. Loneliness is a killer , i have now been almost alone for almost seven weeks but my loneliness is defined as being in an alien land without knowing not many people. If i just extrapolate my experience , i can truly understand what perfect loneliness could mean . It just frightens me. The sheer thought of perfect loneliness draws sweat in my brow.

All that being said about loneliness, there is one aspect which is important to give thought about. Although being alone is not the best of any human experience and human brain can go crazy with weird thoughts.

Hang on , weird thoughts but that comes from how we channel our energy , what i have come to believe is that there are some positive elements even in being alone .

If one channels the energy in the right direction while being alone , it can do wonders. I have come to a conclusion after being alone in seven weeks is that if one really strives hard to make a difference in oneself , being alone is not a bad place to start.

Because while being alone , one precious commodity "Time" is on ones side and if that can be used appropriately then to a major extent loneliness can be avoided and new skills can be acquired and existing skills can be sharpened.

What have i acquired in last seven weeks, not many but just two things , i have started seeing movies, that's new to me and i have tried to improve my cooking skills , i should say its improved . Lastly , i have given fitness my absolute priority.

Relocation- A Dedication

This Blog is dedicated to Suresh Iyer.

Moving any item from one to place to another even if its just a hundred meters is an effort.

Imagine relocating completely from one place to another, it is even bigger and a mammoth task.

I have discussed about relocation with Suresh lots of times as he has done relocation between, Mumbai,Bengaluru,Chennai and whenever he discussed about relocation and its difficulties, i used to think well what's all the fuss about? Should it not be very easy, just go to the new place, look at a house and settle in, job done.

How grossly wrong i was, i recently learned the acute issues facing relocation and that too to a completely new place.

Its difficult to find a right place which has right ambiance, good neighbours, proximity for travel,proximity for leisure activities, good set of colleagues .... the list is just endless.

You can imagine how much of an effort it is to get all of this right and you could imagine how much of pain one has to endure even if one of the item in the above list doesn't fit the bill.

This isn't it, there is more to do, when one relocates,all changes to bank accounts , changes to payments , let the local people know about your move , change of postal address.. phew its just such an enormous task.

Its dreadful to do it all alone . I have had a bit of luck as i have friends who are helping me out in my relocation.

Suresh,

Its been a great learning experience and i actually underestimated the efforts in relocation.

Its so Easy to Comment!!

How many times do we comment on others work , almost everyday. Don't we?

Atleast once a day we comment "oh mom same food everyday", "Can't you do this simple thing", "That's so simple","He should have done that ","It was a give away , he shouldn't have played like that".

Its easy to pass comments sitting in a couch or comment while we pass. Have we ever thought can i do the same thing better?

I learnt , its so easy to comment but when you are on spot light , things get awfully difficult to even deliver the smallest thing which we commented was easy thing to do.

Last three weeks i have been cooking for myself, believe me every single day when i cook , i think what the heck of a job this is and how difficult this can be .

I always used to ask my mum, oh ma, why same food everyday? Now with the experience of cooking for my own, well i think what a stupid question that was, when i didn't even realize how difficult job that was.

So easy to pass a comment until we are in the same place and doing the same job. So next time when you pass a comment beware that the work in question might warrant a even better comment.

Why Are Things Expensive

Good Crystals, Dimonds, Glass Ware, Mont Blanc Pens, Rolex Watches.

What emotions do they evoke? They are often connected to richness and are expensive to buy.

Apart from the brand, have we thought why are they expensive? Until about a week , i was of the impression that these items are outrageously expensive to buy .

In the past week i have seen two documentaries that have changed that perception . These items are not expensive because they need to be but because of the skills that are involved in hand crafting the items.

I saw a documentary on Mont Blanc and one on world class glass ware. You would just not believe what it takes to make a quality wine glass or a top notch mont blanc pen.

Believe it or not , when you next visit a star hotel and hold a wine glass in your hand , think that these are hand crafted and there are about a dozen technicians who have worked to make that happen from just sand.

It is amazing to see how much it takes to make one and how much patience and interest is required to get it to the quality that warrants those prices.

Well these are worth their prices . Some may not agree. If you do not , well try and watch the documentaries that come under the title "How it works" in Discovery channel.You will know why iam saying this.

Its been a good learning week for me.

Ego Plays Even at the Highest Level

So football is going great guns and fans are out in the thousands to cheer the world cup.

That's one part of the story . What i find incredibly hard to digest is the politics and the ego's that play within many teams . Best examples being Les Blues i.e. the French team . Just couple of years ago , they were a treat to watch . Beautiful spirit and wonderful game .

Just see what a shamble the team is in . Is it to be blamed on Raymond Domenech the coach or the football association for keeping him long.

Just a while ago , the news is that he has sent Nicholas Anelka home for some spat during the 2-0 defeat at the hands of mexico.

That's just ridiculous, he brings a player and for whatever reason , he just sends him back home.

Whatever has happened, he is the boss and should have sorted it out amicably. You could say, some times tough medicines work but Anekla, lets agree is a world class player and Domenech would need his services if France are to progress to the next stages in this world cup.

I just don't get my head around how even people at this highest competitive level have big ego's. As a manager he should handle such things , am no expert but even a manager at a small company is expected to solve people related problems and be the nucleus of the team, well Domenech for all reason's isn't one.

It was obvious even looking at the body language of the coach during the match .

Lets hope team spirit wins and let not egos cast a shadow on this brilliant sporting history.

Its Back Again

Its the 19th Edition , this event did not take place only twice in its history . The event has seen some of the best sporting actions, great legends were born.

You have guessed it right, the world cup football fever is back . Just about a week for the first game to kick off.

Adidas have made the "Jabulani" , the world cup official football but not without its fair share of controversy.

The great thing about this editions world cup is that , for the first time ever this is going to be held in the African Continent and that too in South Africa which showed the horrors of Apartheid to the world and also one which produced one of the greatest leaders in Nelson Mandela.

Its only fitting that South Africa hosts this prestigious event.

I seriously hope that this tournament brings in the much needed assistance to Africa. I have already seen that FIFA is banking on this tournament to develop football in the region and also to assist in various other humanitarian programmes as well.

I and the whole world expect that south africa would make this tournament memorable and show the world what potential a region often connected to poverty and Aids has.

May the best team win and let this be the window of opportunity for Africa.

I just cannot wait for the games to begin. Its going to be a cracker of a contest.

The Season Begins!!!

Seriously i did not know what to write and i had this weird goal that i set at the beginning of the year . The goal is to blog every week. Its easy to give up but to blog at least once a week is doable.

Hence this blog.

The Tennis Grand Slam season is underway with Australian Open completed and French open underway . Whether it is going to be the King of Clay " Rafa" who is going to rule or is it going to be the elegant Federer or Andy Murray or Novak Djokovic or Soderling or Verdasco ... its too difficult to predict the mens section.

In the women's section , it looks more like the clash of the noted top seeds specifically the williams sisters again this year, with a very little room for upsets, may be that's too early to conclude.

However grand slams have always provided the much needed upsets. So we cannot yet say what would be the outcome of the tournament that has just got underway or can we predict the outcome of the rest of the grand slams which would be as keenly fought as always.

What ever happens, let sportsmanship be the order of the games and may the best player win this tournament and the subsequent ones.

Money Makes Many Things

Money Makes Many things so goes the saying.

It was a classic display of the old adage last week.

On Sunday i took a flight , economy class to Singapore the flight was good , travel time short and inflight service was ordinary. I forgot to order my vegetarian food , when i asked for one , they said they'll try and some how found the same for me. Will not delve into cramped seats etc ,which is obvious for the class i travelled. Lets focus only on service.

I get water in a plastic cup, same with the juice . Probably juice served only twice during entire flight and that too in the plastic cup. More over i had to remind them that i need vegetarian food.

Just five days later on my return i flew the same return flight but only that i flew the class of coats , suits and fake smiles i.e. Business Class.

Whoaaa what a difference in five days . Ordinary mortal just turns close to immortal. Seperate check in queue , once checked in , i am whizzed past through immigration. Then onto the cozy lounge to relax and connect to the world if need be .

Then comes the time to board the aircraft , the announcement goes like this . " we call upon passengers with seats xyz to board and our business class passengers can board the flight as and when they wish".

Once in my seat , a stewardess comes to me and says " Sir what would you like to drink, champagne , wine, coffee or juice"

Again same mistake i did not order veg food , this time the difference is that the stewardess finds the meal for me. I get different magazines to read, offered many different kinds of news paper. Have a range of entertainment to choose from . The list just goes on and on.

What a world of difference in service. Money makes many things , what better evidence can i see to substantiate the old adage.

Phew, it does make a difference . Is it ethical to differentiate people based on money ? Well that's for a different blog altogether.

As of now , money does make many things.

Marriage Market

This topic was coming , surely this was coming for many reasons.

Couple of reasons was that i just finished the book - Logic of Life by Tim Hartford . In the book, the author has dedicated a chapter on this topic. Secondly one of my batch mate blogged about something similar today in his blog.

When i was speaking to my parents and couple of family friends yesterday on the topic of Marriage , the common theme was marriage is all about destiny.

Is that really true or in a more scientific manner on how Tim had taken, is it more economics driven?

My take on it , atleast in the society that we all live in , its a mixture of both.

Why do i say that?, the reasons are multifold.

At the very outset i.e. when a family wants to get their daughter or son married, economics dominate the scene. The requirements of the family for match making is such that it can only be driven by economics, given the requirements how is the supply meeting the demand.

As time goes either the supply or the demand increases or decreases but we all know here the problem is the increase or decrease does not happen proportionately on both side. Hence the economic angle of why we see people who are very eligible and who as an individual could be considered really good is unable to find a match, this is more the economic conundrum.

Now come to the other angle of this discussion. How well does destiny play a role. Pretty much destiny does have a big role to play.

Lets go a step back and see in the economics of marriage market , we say its driven by supply and demand , however say for e.g. person X is in that market and there are 9 such men and say 8 women who are there . So in the match making process , not all women would want to choose for various reasons , lets assume 4 women choose.

This would mean that out of ten men 4 actually get married and the rest six wait . Now out of ten the four were destined to get married and six weren't destined.

Of course this is way off simple to explain such a complex stuff and in our examples we have implicitly stated that all ten are equal across all factors which are necessary for getting selected. Which may not be the case in real world.

However this market dynamics do work and the possibility that getting married is a mixture of economics and destiny, cannot be ruled out.

Sunset

Sunset - What emotions does that word bring to anyone? Normally the word is associated in a slightly negative context , the truth is far from that.

I was cycling this evening at around six . After a blistering summer sun hammering down through out the day , believe me sun set is one of those very beautiful things to watch. Its such a pleasure to watch the sun set and to see the orange sky and moon just about being illuminated, what a bliss.

Its gracious , concomitant with cool breeze, beauty of the occasion and the vastness of the universe.

Great emotions come in, its so soothing to see the sun set and the moon come out . What a romantic setting to take a stroll with one's partner or take a relaxed walk, exercise for a healthy life or even sit back and enjoy a novel with a cup of hot tea or coffee.

Its the time where in my opinion , nature is at its very best. Nature lets all the living beings on earth know that after a hard days work , it is ok to relax and enjoy.

After all aren't we born to enjoy.

Govt Office

Disorganised, pathetic, mundane ... list of adjectives is endless.

That's what comes to our mind when we say govt. office and my experience yesterday at a government office was along the similar lines and by the time i finished my job i was sweating profusely, tired and dizzy.

Some of the basics amenities and planning was missing . What i found the most intriguing is the answer to why is this happening.

I keenly watched what was happening .Whilst fifty percent of our thoughts about govt offices are correct and are caused by the babus of the nation while the rest of it is contributed by the people/public themselves.

Much has been written about babus and what they need to do , I wish to look at what our public are causing and what they can do to assist in running the govt office in a better manner in this blog.

Firstly, we do not either read the rules or do not understand what it means, thereby causing misunderstanding, confusion and short of pandemonium.

Secondly, we do not obey the rules of the office , if the officer says to come at 11:30 we either go at 12:30 or go at 8:30 . This only irritates people.

Thirdly , our genuine lack of discipline either may it be standing in queue or going to the counter in order .

These sound silly but in a big scheme of things , these fairly rudimentary principles cause problems to the efficient running of our govt. organization .

I just realized that we need to contribute our bit to ensure that we help the govt. as much as possible.

Folks, next time when you go to a govt. office instead of complaining about the endless delays and bottlenecks , please do try and see what you can do to make it better.

Defending A Title

Folks,

My apologies for not being regular over last few weeks , the Internet connection back home is still not up and running .

I have heard that if you are a defending champion in any kind of a sport or an event , they say you have to soak the pressure of defending the title and people's expectation. As always when somethings are said its hard to understand until such time that one has a practical experience.

Yes, I had a hands on experience of defending a title yesterday.

Since last year , we have an annual quiz event in our organization. Last year , our team won by a narrowest of margin, we won by one point. This year the quiz was conducted yesterday and we were overwhelming favourites to win the quiz.

As you can imagine the pressure was on our team from the word go , to first get through the preliminary round and to make sure that we get into the finals which we did reasonably well. Although we did make couple of obvious mistakes in the preliminary stage.

Into the finals pitting against eight teams, the whole crowd expected us to win hands down , as one can imagine expectations rise sky high in no time . There were five rounds in all and by the end of round one , we were sixth with four points . We did not miss any questions but other teams did well.

Come round two , we still were in sixth . Round three came and we we just notched up couple of places to move into fourth place. We could have capitalised even better had it not been for the nerves to get the better of us in couple of questions.

There was a eerie calm before the start of round four we still had a mountain to climb , the deficit between first placed team and us were twelve points , we were focused and calm , we scored ten points and moved equal to second placed team and two points adrift the top team.

Come the last round , we were not leading and we missed the first direct question again due to pressure we knew the answer but blurted out the wrong one , fortunately for us none of the other teams got it right , so positions remained the same. Then came the real magic , The first placed team got one question half right to score two more points and we got three rebuttals and answered all three to go seven points clear with one question remaining which for reasons other than being tricky one , none of the teams answered and we were finally relieved to have defended the title. Although not in the best possible way but still results is what counts.

This was just an ordinary quiz amongst colleagues nothing major was at stake , i just sank and thought about what it would be like to be a Roger Federer , Sachin Tendulkar, Valentino Rossi or could be any major sporting icon . It would be like a pressure cooker and they absorb those pressure time and again . These people have done this for years now and that too in front of millions of their fans ... Phew that's phenomenal feat and an achievement in my view of epic proportions.

Jessy - Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya

Its not my normal habit to write about movie characters but this one definitely deserves a mention in my blog.

All credit to Gautam Vasudev Menon for making the character as real as possible. Does Jessy live in real life? yes i think so.

When i was watching the movie the thing that struck me the most was how confused Jessy was and why the whole mess? She tends to waver between to hold on and to let go.

The character tends to keep everyone around her and herself happy. Is that at all possible , surely not .One cannot keep everyone happy , its close to utopian to even think about keeping everyone happy.

Jessy seem to be thinking that she would be a good daugther and a good lover and also keep every one happy.I was just dumbstruck as you are. I was thinking oh , what a joke , that you come from a traditional family and get into an affair and want to keep your parents happy , well forget it.

That's precisely is what she did. Whom did she forget , well the scapegoat in the whole drama - Karthik.

There are umpteen Karthik's in real world as well. To be fair to him , its impossible for a real intense lover to even imagine that his love will break, trust is everything in love and he trusted Jessy blindly. Do i say that he could have anticipated what transpired, certainly not.

As to Jessy, she was torn between Parent's love and a Lover's intense love . Ultimately parents won.

Does that mean Karthik lost , definitely not. He did make it big in life as a director . A great saying goes like this "When you trust some one, trust them blindly either of the two will happen. Either you get a good person in life or learn a lesson of life" Karthik had to learn a lesson of life.

As is often said behind every sucessful man , there is a woman. Even in Karthik's case there is a woman but just sad that she was his Ex-lover.

Was Jessy right in doing what she did ,its pretty hard to say. One need to be in her shoe's to even comment. Its a matter of one years love vs 23 years of love,care and affection.

Everyone knows the longer the love,the more intense it is , so was the case with jessy that her love for her parents ultimately was decisive.

Luckily she did not spoil Karthik's life , atleast he was not a Devdass at the very end .I certainly believe that it should not be the case in anyones life.

Life is much bigger than any one individual,life has its own ups and down's. That's the way its designed . Life has to move on in any case.

All good things happen because it had to happen and all bad things have happenned because they have to happen as well.

Jessy could have been little more decisive.

To all the Jessy's and Karthik's in the world , love isnt everything. If its lost , it is lost for a reason and if its won , its won for a reason as well.

If you have lost it , well better things are awaiting in your life and if you have won , well this is the best thing to have had happenned.

To all the parents of Jessy's and Karthik's of the world, you are putting your daughters and son's through hell and a pain full process. It is not worth anything . Is this why you bring them up with lots of care and affection? Do think for yourself. The answer is already in your mind.

In anyways keep enjoying life. Life is never lost with just one incident.

Note:- This is just my opinion, if you would want to refute it , please do . Do not think that i dont seem to understand Jessy's pain . I certainly do understand and empathize with Jessy but life just does not end here.It certainly has to move on.

F1 Again

Looking forward for this years F1 season.

With all speculations about the driver line up put to dust and all issues about the new cars on the grid taking a sideline. Well its time for the real racing to begin.

Who will take the honours,will Schumacher be able to match the young turks , will Alonso be the unassailable king of F1 or would any of the other drivers carve out some magic,only time will tell.

As for me and millions of fans around the world, the wait is just about to be over and by far one of the best F1 season is about to begin.

May the best team and best driver win, i cannot wait to see the start.

What an Difference in Experience

After ages i wittnessed what has been said for long , govt run corporations need some basic customer service training if they are to compete with the private sector.

Firstly my modem had crashed and the same was given to service a week ago . After one week of hassle , i went today to find out what the status of it was . The officer in charge just took the modem and said that it was not ready, the time was already 1.15 p.m so naturally his hunger took the better of him. I left the place, fifteen minutes later my mom calls me and says that modem is ready and we can collect them . I was baffled. Here is the same man telling me that it was not ready and in fifteen minutes he calls my home and says all is well !

Same afternoon, i went to a private shop to buy a mobile phone. The time was 2.45 p.m. I went up to the service person and enquired about various models and also about the Blackberry service. He patiently explained and said that with my current mobile connection i would not be able to use the blackberry and hence i would need to switch to another connection if i were to buy a blackberry. I asked him how long it would take. He made a swift phone call and said everything can can be done in less than four hours.

After some hassle, i finally let go of that guy for lunch and i promised that i would be back in 30 minutes to buy the phone and change the connection. Promptly within 29 minutes i get a call stating that the phone service man has come from lunch and the phone connection dealer has come to collect necessary information to switch over my phone connection. I settled for a new black berry. All done in a matter of less than 15 minutes. Promptly after 3 hours , my new connection was activated.I only had to speak to the phone service provider only once in the whole process.

World of difference , huge difference in customer experience. Here is a govt. run organization rendering a service which can only be said to be sloppy and that too in a country which aspires to be a information power house, while i am treated like a king in a similar services company but only difference being its a privately run company.

If govt run companies are to compete and if we are to be world class , the mind set of the people have to change and top quality service should be the motto . I do know that these govt. run organizations cater to various kinds of people but service is a service whether it be rendered by a private party or a govt. run organization.

What do you say?

Movies

Don't think what's this guy got to say about 'Movies', he is anyway a dud in that subject . So what's in store.

We do not need to be the same always and can heed to feedback and suggestions that your friends give. Certainly all good feedbacks can be taken and worked upon. That's what i have done.

Lots of my friends watch movies, some of them like Tinku aka Kishore, Goks and Udupps aka Anand are big time movie buffs. Absolute movie gurus from my view.

I really wondered why and how are these fellow spending so much time on watching movies. its boring , always been a critic of these fellows.

Very recently Kishore just made a remark on me saying "Dude you need to grow up" Watch movies.

Well i tried to heed to his advice and interestingly during the period that i was actually thinking, conversation amongst my friends started flowing on some movies and their reviews typical discussions as you can expect them to be and to be honest these were just not any other discussions but really intense and open . I took keen interest and understood how these discussions panned out.

I thought to myself , so ok let me give it a try. Let me take some time to watch movies i.e. quality ones.

The pinnacle of it came yesterday ,while i was flying back from London . Watched two movies of different kind. One was "Hitch" where Will Smith weaves his magic and the other one was Erin Bronkovich , Julia Roberts was truly outstanding and her portrayl of the character was simply awesome.

I actually watched them back to back straight four hours. After i watched both these movies ,i felt so light and it makes you think gosh that's intersting.

Movies i realize need not only be to pass time , they do have messages and it makes you start thinking . "Innovative thinking" .

I am still a long way off to get near to our movie Guru's but am certain to catch them.

Folks watch this space.

Tinku, Goks, Uddups thanks to all of you. Ofcourse you all direct me into what's so called the "Quality film Space" and not any other movies. Always looking for your guidance on this subject.

Truly Multi Cultural

Multi Cultural, what does it mean. In my view it is where people from different culture and walks of life live together.

The best example that i have for a truly multi cultural place is London. When one walks in the street or travels by the bus or the Tube , it is easy to get confused where you are. One can easily spot different vagaries of people.

Right from Chinese, Indian, American, Latino what not you name it and you are bound to find them. Its truly amazing to see how people from different societies come together and amalgamate.

London is truly a epicenter of multi faceted city and in that sense is an undisputed leader in that front.

I cannot imagine another city in the world which could be as multi cultural as London,yes Tokyo,Hong Kong,Amsterdam,Frankfurt,Chicago all do vie for that spot but my take is that London wins it hands down.

Open for comments.