A Year to Remember- Curtains 2011 & Welcome 2012- Will 21/12/12 be the End?

Samoa & Tokelau have had their dateline changed they have jumped from 29 Dec to 31st Dec skipping a day in its entirety to aling with their major trading partners Australia and New Zealand. 

Its New Years eve across the world  & New Zealand's Chatam Islands has about 7 minutes to welcome the new year .

As i sit down to give final touches to this blog, Its a gray morning here , clouds seem to be all over the place and only few speckles of brightness around .

Doesn't that sound vaguely familiar? 

Yes it does sound quite familiar as the year just gone by 2011 was an embodiment of bad news all around only with speckles of good news. It was a year of revolution in many countries mainly caused by usage of social networking often leading to overthrow of governments. 2011 will go down in the modern history books as a year where human will triumphed against all odds.

2011 started off on a cracking note , not in a figurative sense but a literal one . I was out with one of my closest friend Ramakrishnan , standing on the banks of River Thames to watch the fireworks in central London and welcome 2011. It was a spectacular affair and i was pleased that i heeded to my friends advice to see this spectacle and thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks , one of the best that i have ever seen.

February marked a shake-up to my personal life as i got engaged and started courtship period which climaxed in Sep i.e. marriage.

As things ploughed along in my personal life, real world was pushing hard and where ever one looked it was bleak and things were heading south.

Economy stagnating all across Europe & rest of developed world. There was wide spread discontentment against the bankers and banking society in general and they were vilified for having caused the issues in the first place . Housing prices struggled to rise and new home ownerships slumped across the developed world.

Bankers took a pounding from the public and many of the so called ' Masters of the Universe' i.e. I Bankers aka Investment bankers were torn apart by legislators and also by general public , this is here to stay and its widely expected that Investment Banks will look at the way they do business and will be clipped of their risk taking abilities by the ensuing legislation's across the Atlantic. 

Among notable personality both for their goods and the ills, Kweku Adoboli the UBS rogue trader who cost the firm $2 billion and Oswald Gruebel the firms CEO his position , Jon Corzine , former I banker , a Senator turned CEO bought his firm MF Global to its knees as it filed for bankruptcy and who could not explain the missing funds from client accounts stand tall for their deeds , however Mario Draghi , Christian Lagarde, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy all vie for a place in the league of powerful people to shape the future of the financial and economical world .

Hitherto considered panacea for world issues , BRIC Economies had its fair share of problems. 


Brazil had the worst ever flooding in Jan , its main stock index Bovespa fell nearly 16% . Russia had to deal with discontentment among its people widespread loss of faith in elections due to rigging , Putin seemed to have lost his edge there & its own stock index The RTS fell by 22% , Poster child India was hammered by a heavy blow with a weakening rupee, inflation seemed to be the buzz word as it once again showed its ugly face and the cost differential, cheap work force with which India had grown so far is now narrowing and there are many competitors in the same scale, India's main index The Sensex has fallen 22%, India was also deeply plagued by political will to pass the Lokpal bill, the 2G scam to name a few . Big Daddy, China had its own share of problems not limited to Economic slowdown but also news about rail disasters and the bad press relating to China's bad IP laws including the one with Siemens , where Chinese Railway systems (CNR) which had received training from Siemens bumped Siemens in bagging the rights to build the Beijing-Shangai high speed rail networks. and its stock index the SSE has fallen by a whopping 26%


The bold prediction by Jim O Neil and fellow Goldman  alumni that BRIC economies would be the largest economy by 2050 and will be the engine of growth seems to be fading away. The new economic acronym seem to be CIVETS (Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey & South Africa)


Commodity prices started to tumble in a late slide , gold lost ground but still ended  up about 10% year on year , Silver is trading 10% lower while Platinum lost 21% & Palladium fell by 18%

With Economy faltering , it was up to the politicians to seize the opportunity and push forward for reforms , political will was tested severely and in majority of the cases political will failed to stand the test.The Arab spring spread across much of Middle East , It was a unanimous referendum that people were not willing to wait any longer and voted strongly in favour of democracy against dictatorship. The rioting was not limited to Arab world , discontent spread to developed world , as there was rioting and strikes in many parts of Greece, Italy, Spain and also in England pre-dominantly sparked off by economic issues rather than political.


As if wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not enough , Nato forces this time around were defiant to defeat the brutality of Libyan dictator, Muammar Ghaddafi whose regime had plundered the middle eastern state and virtually handicapping the entire nation. Defeat they did when Muammar Ghadafi was killed in cross fire in middle of the year.


The US played its part too in the killing of much wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.


Journalism had its Achilles heels in Rupert Murdoch & the News of the International phone hacking scandal , which cropped out of nowhere and made international head lines and shaming the Murdoch empire and journalism as a whole.


During the early part of the year , Nature played its hand too . A massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale triggered a tsunami in east of Japan killing more than 15,000 people and destabilising the countries nuclear reactors.


As things looked bleak , one specific sector was hotting up , it was the technology sector where the battle of the titans had just begun . Amazon surprised everyone by launching their colour e-reader called the Kindle Fire , which got rave reviews. Google kicked off its battle to thwart Facebook by launching its own social networking website called Google+ . Google also entered into the lucrative airline travel search business and is causing furore in the markets. In the mobile front , it was loggerheads with Apple , HTC , Samsung slugging it out with new launches. It was one of the very few sectors that saw actions leading to positive outcome.


The world population reached 7 billion in 2011 and is continuing to grow . There were scores of scientific discoveries , specifically discovery of a earth like planet called Kepler 22-b & hints of Higgs Boson particle in a recent experiment at CERN grabbing headlines in the scientific community.


Not to leave out the entertainment industry , this year has been no exception as there were hundreds of movies released , one of the major competitors to theatre owners seem to be technology companies like Netflix which stream movies into home, this battle continue to be fought in the years to come.


The Airline industry saw the first delivery of much delayed and much anticipated, fuel economic releases from Boeing in the form its 747 Dreamliner airline and ANA (Air Nippon Airways) was the first to take delivery of  it and with it Boeing has fired their first salvo in their competition against Airbus and this time Boeing is placing its bets based on Fuel efficiency, with oil prices hitting high , this bet looks like a sound one.


In sports, Sebastian Vettle did the job for Red Bull racing , a clinical drive from start to finish enroute to 2011 championship , India displayed nerve of steel to clinch their second cricket world cup defeating Sri Lanka , Novak Jkovic won three grand slams in 2011 on his way to becoming world number 1 dethroning clay king Rafa Nadal.


We bid adieu to some of the best known faces on earth , Steve Jobs, Dev Anand , Michael Jackson to name a few.


To conclude , we step into 2012, with lot of clouds hanging around and each one threatening to unleash maximum pain to the society , its long been shown that whatever happens, humankind have always found ingenious ways to solve problems and am supremely confident that we will find way around issues this time around.


2012 will be hot , politicians pushing to stave off contagion across Eurozone , Americans would hope to stabilize their economy and take a heavy view on Financial and associated services. Euro 2012, London Olympics will light fireworks in the sporting field , Apple expected to launch Apple ITV, Mini Ipad, Ipad 3 , Google expected to launch the Ice cream Sandwich (aka Android 4) , Facebook's mega IPO said to be largest since the early 90's , 4G roll-out . The amount of activities expected across various segments and sectors are immense and its going to be another busy year.


Having said that and as proven in 2011 , Nature always goes one better than any of us could possibly imagine , with the Mayan calendar predicting cataclysmic damage in 2012 and dawn of the new age . Whether any of the above will be true or not , only time will tell. We can be cautiously optimistic that nature will take its own course and am sure she will prove who the ultimate master of the universe is.


I am Stepping into 2012 with a handful of specific goals , am hoping to pursue each of these goals with rigour.


I wish you and your family a very happy new year , May this new year bring prosperity and happiness.

Don't Take Yourself too Seriously !

That was an advice given by The President of the United States - Barrack Obama.

I was watching a documentary about life of the official photographer of the white house Pete Souza .

It was an amazing documentary which took the viewrs behind the scenes of the white house and showed the inside view of the supreme commanders daily chores and some of the magnificent photos that were taken by the photographer.

In the programme which was delivered in an interview format , there was one moment which was an interview with the president , where he quotes an incident in the white house.

This was his meeting with a very young kid , who happened to be a kid of his white house staff.

This kid stood up to the president and said " people say I have a hair cut similar to yours , can I examine your head " !

The president instantly obliged . The kid examined president's head and patted him on his head . Vividly captured in the photo below.

http://www.google.co.in/search?q=google+images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#sclient=tablet-gws&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&source=hp&q=baraack+obama+pat+on+head+photo&pbx=1&oq=baraack+obama+pat+on+head+photo&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1833l17593l0l18125l49l42l2l0l0l4l544l6814l5.26.5.1.1.1l44l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a5d3a2c5563f73ea&biw=1024&bih=672

The president quotes this incident and says " sometimes you shouldn't take yourself too seriously and have a good sense of humour".

How true , in life we always take ourselves too seriously engrossed in things which do not count in the long run and there by missing out on splendid moments that nature befalls us. We don't appreciate what has been bestowed upon us and how much better off we are when compared to scores of other people who are out there.

We don't appreciate what life has given us , neither do we enjoy it, all of it is lost in our ever increasing complex lifestyle which surely is destroying some of the fundamental human values. only to regret what is lost in the last stages of our life.

Let us take a step back and say to ourselves , life has to be enjoyed and not to be taken too seriously .

Enjoy life.

The Tourist- Part 4 - Florence

My colleague suggested that i visit Florence and he was so confident that it wouldn't go wrong . Florence , one of the important city of the region of Tuscany lived up to the expectations.

I've always wanted to visit italy , this trip was a dream come true in many ways.

Italy is a fascinating country , its rich historical heritage combined with great food and top class fashion makes it a much sought after tourist destination.

My visit to Florence did not come as an accident , it was well planned and in my tourist series , this place was already on the cards even before i started my first trip.

To start with , any trip to Italy means lot of homework to do  especially due to its history and heritage . So i dutifully bought rough guides to Tuscany& Umbria .

I started to read a lot and mark out places that i had to visit. The only problem was given Tuscany was so large i was left with a slight confusion on whether i should base myself in Pisa or in Florence.

After good amount of deliberation , i chose Florence . Once i chose my base, it was now time for preparing the logistics.

I used trip advisor to choose the hotel , i must admit that the tool is really good and when put to the right use , it provides lot of benefits.

I chose my hotel based on trip advisor recommendation and it was spot on.  Once logistics, including flights fell into place , it was time to formulate a itinerary .

I read through the whole of rough guidebook on Tuscany , looked up Florence tourism board website , which had plenty of recommendation and i must say it was good.

A roughly planned itinerary for the three days , meant nothing was set in stone and i was flexible to change the plan.

Just the day before the trip , i asked my wife to pack few items with a view of visiting a friend, little did she know that i was just preparing her to give her a huge surprise. 

On the day itself , my better half got to know the whole plan only when we reached the airport , she genuinely was pleased and was blushing all the way through to Pisa because we were on our way to Italy a land of Pizza and Pasta which she loves quite a lot.

We boarded the flight and landed in Pisa Gallileo Gallile Airport, which in itself was not bigger than our Chennai Kamaraj Domestic airport , it almost looked like an airport in the middle of a village.

We came out of the airport in less than ten minutes and to our dismay , we were both saying where is the Italian beauty , this looks like a shanty town.

We were to be proven wrong later in the day. It took us an hour to visit Palais Di Miracoli , the place where the world famous leaning tower of Pisa exists , we along with whole host of tourists spent the next few hours.

Our next stop was Florence, which was some 85 kms away. We promptly took a train from Pisa's central station to Firenze ( as Florence is called in Italy) . Our train took all of an hour and twenty minutes to cover the 85 km's . We rolled into Firenze SMN railway station.

Once in the station, we had little trouble in finding our hotel , which was slap bang next to the famous Florence Duomo.

We checked into our hotel and were ushered into our room , which was quite nice with free WIFI and LCD TV's. This hotel was the best of all the places we stayed. A conclusion both me and my better half agreed to.

The evening was spent walking along the banks of River Arno , visiting the great coffee shops of Florence and having sumptuous biscuits. 

We retired to our room early after a solid meal in a near by Restaurant as we had a early start to make the following day.

Next day we were off early . Our first port of call was San Gimignano , a town of historical importance to Florence as this was the town which was used as Fortress when Florence captured Siena in early 12th Century. Then we were off to visit Siena & the wine making region of Chianti.

Siena presents the rustic past , all its walls , the narrow alleyways were standout features. 

We first visited Banque Monte De Paschi , the birth place of banking or the worlds first bank established in the middle of 14th century , still exists proudly in Siena.

After it , we visited the Siena central square where the world famous Palio takes place every July & August. After that we visited the central church before we heading off to Chianti.

The worlds famous Red Wine The Chiantico comes from this place but the region produces some of the worlds best wines and olive oil.

It took us about an hour to reach from Siena to Chianti region. Chianti region is know for its mountains as the grapes for the wines are grown on top of the hills due to the need for better moisture.

In Chianti we visited the Tenuta Casanova wine farm , whose owner left a well paid job in a big super market chain about 20 years ago to take up his hobby full time which was Wine making.

http://www.tenutacasanova.it

The owner (whose name skips my mind) spoke his heart about the wine making and olive oils . Given both of us were teetotaler , we just stuck to tasting olive oil & home made breads.

At about 30 minutes past eight we reached Florence and made our way to dinner . We just had pasta, penne with arabiatta & Ravioli , it was the best ever pasta i have ever tasted . 

Satisfied, we headed back to our room and crashed.

Next morning , i was dealt with a big blow , our flight was cancelled. We frantically tried to get hold of the airline but in vein . However we were lucky to have availability in another flight , although we had to shell out extra money but hey ho this happens and took it in the chin.

Flight issue sorted out, we had lot of time in hand , we headed off to the village of Fiesole, this has to be the icing on the cake of the entire trip.

The quite village tucked up in the high hills provided us with some of the most spectacular views of florence .

Satisified we headed back to Amerigo Vespucci airport in Florence, which was nothing more than just a tiny airport and as they say , small is always beautiful and it surely was .

We checked in and were off to the departure gate in less than ten minutes . We waited for our flights and reminisced about our trip .

Overall it was one of the best and the most satisfying trip 

The Tourist- Part 3 - Geneva

Switzerland is home to some of the Uber Rich and Geneva is the heart of it all . Surrounded by Lake Geneva or Lac Leman as its locally known , this city shows of its international prowess at every level.

In this city , everything works like a clockwork , right from what you see in the airport to restaurants and to daily walks of life.

To start with Geneva is not the capital of Switzerland , its Bern but Geneva has a special place due to its importance as it is host to several offices of International agencies , it is so very important that the second largest UN office after the UN head quarters in New York is in Geneva , you can imagine how powerful this city is in International politics.

My trip started off with a flight from London to Geneva , i was delayed to the flight , thanks to a delayed train departure to the airport . Both me and my wife had to gasp our breath to run across to the check in counter and then another dash across to the flight .

Thankfully we made it on time and the journey itself was smooth . 

Even before we landed in the airport , the scenery before touch down blew our minds away , mountains across and lush green outfields , it was simply stunning scenery.

Once we touch down everything was clockwork , immigration took us just five minutes and we were out collecting our baggage in less than ten minutes. I can only dream of that in other airports.

The surprise starts after that.

The first one was that you could go across to France without stepping into Switzerland within the airport i.e. without having a transit visa , how nice that is . The Geneva airport is slap bang in the border between France and Switzerland , the pathway is signposted , so you couldn't miss it.

As a tourist , right after baggage collection , there are free vending machines which provide you tickets valid for 80 minutes on trains to Central Geneva and its absolutely free , yes its free. The tickets are provided by Unireso the organization that runs the local transports in Geneva,

Unlike other cities you don't get lost as the train station is inside the airport and is clearly signposted. 

We take our train to the Geneva city where our hotel is , the journey was all about 6 minutes and we got down at the main station aka Gare Cornavin . Geneva is a French speaking Canton. Some Swiss history , Switzerland is made up of 26 Cantons , largely divided as French Cantons like Geneva and German Cantons like Zurich & Bern . The linguistic divide in Switzerland is so fierce that its one of the very few items that divide the country where neutrality is everything.

Back to Gare Cornavin. We come out of the train station only to be confused to find out where our hotel was, as we wander across , we politely ask a lady . She stops speaking on her phone and tries to find out the place and finally finds someone who knows it . We get our way and halfway down we are again confused . Seeing our predicament , another lady stops by and helps us all the way to our hotel .

The first impression of our city , they are a bunch of very friendly people.

We check into our hotel , where another surprise awaited us . All tourists checking into a hotel in Geneva gets a Geneva Transport Card , which is valid for Zone 10 which is all of Geneva on Trams, buses and Trains . No need to pay , its all free. That blew my mind away , no other city does this . I was amazed.

Once we had completed the check in formalities , we get a city map , important places to visit guide etc. Fortunately we had planned our visit, so we had a list of places to Visit .

First Up , Patek Phillip Museum . Patek Philip is a Swiss watch maker, little did i know until i visited the museum that they have had such a large history dating back to more than a century. We saw models of watches which we have never ever imagined had existed before.

Watches that flew to space, watches made of complete diamonds to name a few were on display. Three full stories of horology history .

From there we made our way to the United Nations secretariat and to Ariana museum , The UN office was closed so we spent our time in the Ariana museum which is a museum of ceramics , was really beautiful.

We were stunned by the quietness and the natural beauty of the place, that meant we spent a lot of time clicking good photos.

As the day came to a close , we head back to Geneva Central and had our lunch at McDonald's , this is where i found out a another surprise .This city is ultra expensive . Wouldn't delve into details , we spent a lot on just Fries, veggie burger and cola , was a rip off.

Post lunch, we made our way back to hotel to refresh ourselves , then we were back to the streets of Geneva, roaming around and finding our way across neatly curved streets with good architectures .

We made our way to lake Geneva at nightfall , we did that specifically to see Jet D Etau , the Geneva fountain , towering 140 meters and pouring our a million litres of water every minute , this place is a tourist delight.

From there we made our way to the Flower clock , very Swiss way of making things . Very neat , tidy and extremely unique.

It was now 20:00 and we made our way back to the hotel, only to stop at a Lebanese restaurant for some Mediterranean food.

We slept early as a long day awaited next.

Next day we made our way across the Swiss border into France to visit , Chamonix .  A valley in the Alps overseeing Mt Blanc . the highest peak in Europe.

Chamonix valley & Mt Blanc. 

To sum up day two in just  a sentence ' Extraordinary Natural Beauty' ,  it had to be a place where god was at his imaginative best .

By the time we headed back home it was dark again but our spirits were lit up by what we had seen in Chamonix , it was breathtaking.

Day three started off with a solid breakfast , from where we headed off to the UN secretariat , thankfully it was open and we bought two tickets for guided tour .

Interestingly , the UN office sits on a land that was donated by the Geneva Canton and the current Secretariat is the new office right next to the old office . The historical significance of this office is too many to summarize in this blog. We spent close to two hours in the UN secretariat.

It was already mid day and our next appointment CERN , the European Nuclear Research Organization and home to LHC , the Large Hadron Collider , which 100 meters below the ground is trying to recreate the situation moments after big bang .

It was nostalgia for me , as a physics student seeing particle accelerator and equations in the Gallelio Galleli globe exhibition was all fun and brought back good old college memories , was missing my friends Gaurav, Sriram and Dinakar.

An hour in CERN , we made our way to a town called Carouge , which is a very old town characterizing everything that is Swiss . Its beauty , boutique shops signifies everything Swiss. 

The day flew by and it was now time to be back to the hotel to leave back to London. So we made our way back to the hotel where we collected our bags and made our way to the Airport , although to early for our flight , we did not want to take a chance.

We safely made our way back to our home almost close to stroke of mid night .

It was an interesting trip , very different city . The highlight was Chamonix which is in France . Although French spoiled by previous trip due to a pick pocketed purse , they duly made it up this time around by the way of Chamonix.

Geneva another city but very quite and calm , everything is business as usual for them.

As i finish this blog , this weekend is a break for us . We have lived off our back packs in our last three weekends, this one has to be time for a break and some recuperation because the journey continues .

Next Stop .. ah ah .. keep guessing.

The Tourist- Part 2 - Paris

One can never go wrong with Paris, with so much of history behind it, natural beauty & soaked in beautiful architecture , it has always been a travelers delight. 

Unlike my last trip, my current trip to Paris was planned in advance . All bookings including hotel & travel were pre booked.

This was to be my fourth visit to this beautiful european city. So far I had only travelled to Paris as a bachelor but this time it was along with my better half.

The trip was for three days & in order for us to maximise our time , we started planning early.

I had bought the trusted National Geographic travel guide book of Paris, fortunately for me , this book was on sale , so got it in the cheap.

I was tasked to be the planner by my better half , so read through the book and made up a plan . We were looking forward for the trip.

The journey to the French capital was by a coach . As is often said, nothing actually goes to a plan.

The first thing that happened early on in the trip was that our coach journey was extremely difficult , unlike our previous coach  journey to Amsterdam , this coach had smaller leg space & we suffered quite heavily due to lack of space.

We arrived on early Friday morning , weary and tired . Our bodies were aching , I had anticipated that we would be tired , hence had booked an extra day for our stay which will enable us to rest ourselves and tour the city .

Just as we were looking forward to check in to our rooms, we were told by the hotel staff that our booking had been cancelled, however there were rooms available for the next two days covering our itinerary , we had no choice but to book the rooms but could only check in at noon.

We had about five hours to spend before check in time, we decided to put our belongings in a locker .

We did just that and we went to nearest train station. Once there , we purchased a three day travel card which gave us unlimited travel in the city.

Our first port of call was Opera , this is where ballet and great operas take place. However it was too early for it to be open, so we had to do with few snaps from the outside. From there we made our way to Starbucks to kill some time, fortunately they also had free WiFi and we made optimum use of, little did i know , how decisive knowing this startbucks would be later on the trip.

We then made our way to Place Vendom, marked in the history , this place has a central tomb and is a visitors delight.

From there we made our way to Jardine de Tuileries , which is a beautiful garden near Rue de Ravioli and it's known for it's arrangement of the trees and it's beauty .

The Trees gave way to the Concorde palace and the beginning of Champs Eleysee, we walked across to Les Invalides , the army museum , everything was just beautiful.

Then we made our way to Arc De Triomphe , the arc of victory . Exhausted we had a brunch consisting of cappuccino and sandwich , toughest part was making people understand the concept of vegetarian, which was a tough thing to achieve in this trip. Post visiting the Arc, we made our way back to the hotel to check in and refresh ourselves, couple of hours of rest and we were raring to get out again.

We toured the length and breadth of the city , starting at the two islands, Ile de la Cite & Ile Ste Louis,  formed by river seine , this was natural beauty , we walked across key points of the islands as explained in the national geographic guide, we were blown away by the natural beauty of the islands and to top it all the architectural marvel of Notredame, which was the highlight of the day . The Notredame was simply stunning, it was architectural brilliance at its very best.

Three hours later , we were at the end of the second island , from where we made our way to Bastille , where the central tomb carries the victory flame , am not so sure what the significance of this tomb was but certainly looks very important given it's place in centre of the city. 

We then made our way to Gare Du Lyon , one of the biggest railway station in Paris from where millions of people make connections to other European destinations year around.

The next on our agenda was Effiel tower but before that we had to finish lunch , it was already 18:45 pm and we were starving .As usual there was no vegetarian food , even in Mcdonalds, we had to do with two croissants.

Post our walking lunch , we made our way to Effiel tower. I had been here before and climbed the tower & watched the light dazzle the spectators before , however for my wife, this was an experience , which she isn't going to forget, it was magical.

Exhausted we made our way back to the hotel , as the hotel did not have a attached restaurant, we had to do with a veg burger & potato chips from Mcdonalds , the burger was nothing but fresh bun and lettuce .

We both crashed to reenergise ourselves for the following day.

Next day was a beautiful day , started off with a solid continental breakfast at the hotel and then we made our way to The Louvre.

We spent four hours in the Louvre , going through art, architecture and artefacts from the past . The Louvre , one of the largest museums in the world boasts of some of the impressive collection .

The collection is not limited to European history but also ancient Asian, middle east history .It also contains paintings of Leonardo da Vinci , sculptures of Michaelangelo  , Napoleon Bonaparte collections just to name a few.

Just when everything seemed to be going so well, we had to cancel our next intended plan to visit Luxembourg Palace due to travel issues and cancellation of metro in that route, this was decisive in what followed next.

Instead we revised our plans to visit Ronald Garros , one of the circuit that make up the tennis grand slam.

I was so happy at this turn of events , the tour of the tennis court was a blessing as we made our way into players interview rooms, the media centre and of course to the court itself.

With a joyous mood , we made our way back from Roland Garros to Montmatre , the place of Sacre cour .

It was drizzling and we climbed the mountain to see Sacrecour , we left in a joyous mood and wanted to make our way back to our hotel as it was 20:00 hours . Just when everything seemed to be picture perfect , someone stole my purse in the crowd.

My wife spotted some one pushing me and by the time I could realise that something was wrong , everything was over. In the rain and in a land where English isn't even a second choice language , i struggled to make people understand what had happened , it was so difficult to get my point across about complaining to the police. 

I gave up in vain , between i had to ensure that money was safe in my account , I immediately took the necessary steps to deactivate all my cards and used technology to check all was ok.

It was a beautiful day marred by such a silly incident.

I did learn a couple of things due to this incident.

1 Never put your eggs in one basket

2 How important it is to never write pin numbers anywhere ( fortunately I hadn't)

We made our way to our hotel distressed , confused and bitter . We couldn't do much , we consoled ourselves and slept.

Next morning I was too nervous to go out but took courage to venture out to few places before we left .

Just as am finishing up this journey , time and again am reminded that travel teaches a lot of things and this trip hasn't been an exception.

It's been a learning , there were fantastic moments , some dull ones and one extremely bad incident which has left a scar on the trip .

Life has to move on and there is still more travel to do. The Travel Continues ..... next up ..... keep guessing ....

The Tourist - Part 1- Amsterdam

The Tourist is the apt title for this blog.

Part 1 ? Yes this is the start of my interest to travel around , I have always had the notion that travelling teaches a lot of things . Now that I have a companion in my wife , the tourist experience is elevated to a different level.

This is the start of my tourist journey . What better place to start the adventure than the colourful and historic city of Amsterdam.

Named after the river that flows through the city , river Amstel. Amsterdam the capital city of The Kingdom of Netherlands is known for many of it's historic museums, tourist friendly people and not to forget the liberal mind set as the Dutch were the first to legalize Euthanasia & Prostitution.

No better place to start the journey.

My travel to Amsterdam wasn't planned , here the logical mind gave away to what the heart was saying . I had already visited Amsterdam about five times, logically I could had to chose another destination but Amsterdam it was for two reasons; one it was the first ever foreign city I had visited ever in my life and two i had fond memories of the city.

Decision was made in a spur of the moment as I had booked the tickets and hotel only on Thursday night for a Friday departure , I was lucky to get both of them albeit a touch expensive due to last minute booking .

I was all set to travel to Amsterdam by bus aka coach service. The coach would go all the way from central London & cross the north sea via Dover port to Calais in Paris en route to Amsterdam.

Just at the Dover port we had to complete the border control formalities.

The biggest surprise to both my better half & myself was the sea crossing,where our coach sat in the hull of a ship and we were asked to be on board the ship while we crossed the sea. Being in the middle of the sea and on the top deck to get a glimpse of the clear sky and the sea around was purely magical.

Once we crossed and entered the French border , we were again on our way to Amsterdam on road.

We reached the historic city of Amsterdam at around 05:30 local time on Saturday morning . The city was quite and the metro station close to where we had arrived , it was completely deserted. The first metro to central station was at 06:35.

We killed our time just by walking around the station and also toying with the Ticket vending machine.

We took the metro to central station. As such we could not check into the hotel as hotel check in was only allowed after 14:00 , we asked for a early check in without success . However e hotel did allow us to refresh ourselves . Once refreshed , we were proper tourists , ready to explore.

We had purchased a day card which entitled us to travel through out Amsterdam. We decided to have breakfast first, one of my good friend and colleague had suggested that we try out a boutique restaurant near Museumplein called " Brasserie de Joffers " , true to it's description this place was awesome. Very friendly waiters and a great ambiance.

http://www.brasseriedejoffers.nl/home

We had a full Dutch breakfast sans ham & egg instead were offered fresh tomato soup.of course no Dutch food is complete without cheese , we got our fair share of cheese and butter .

Once we completed our sumptuous breakfast , we walked around Museumplein , then took tram no 5 back to Central station.

A trip to Amsterdam is never complete without a cruise around its canals, Amsterdam its believed to have canals running for over a 100 Km. We did the honours by taking a one hour cruise themed " 100 heritage places " a tour operated by the travel company Tui.

It was great to see both modern "Nemo" building in tandem with the old , the djiks. It was a treat to our eyes as went through canal after canal.

Once we completed the trip , we were in a dilemma on which museum to visit, as there were scores of them. 

We rightfully settled to visit two of the both famous , one " The Van Gogh museum " & " The Diamond Museum".

Both of these were worth the money spent be it elegance of van gogh's painting strokes or the exquisite diamonds .

We also visited the coster diamond factory explaining the diamond cutting and polishing art.

After an exhausting first half of the day, it was time for us to have lunch . 

During my second visit , one of my good friends , Sathish T S  found a shop which gives you falafel in a pitta bread but the uniqueness was that the filling was unlimited and for a vegetarian follower, this was a blessing in disguise.

During this trip, i searched for the same shop, after a few hassle i found the shop , rebranded as" Maoz vegetarian" . 

After a solid vegetarian lunch of falafel and salad filing , it was time for us to check into our hotel.

Once we checked in and were ready again, we walked around the city . We first took the tram from central to Leidseplein and from there we walked across to Vondel Park. By now it was dark so we started walking back trough Koeiningsplein where we stopped off for coffee at Starbucks, somethings never change where ever we go. The coffee was same as i have tried in other parts of the world.

From there we went to shop at Etos , a supermarket where we bought few necessary items .

Then we started to walk back to the next tram station from where we got our way back to hotel. By now i was completely out of touch with the world. I had to connect and see what's happened, fortunately we were provided with access to hotels business centre where i was able to log into facebook to see what had happened.

We closed the day with a quiet dinner and crashed to bed.

Next morning we checked out and headed again to Brasseire de Joffers for breakfast. Once our breakfast was complete , we headed out to Dapper Markt & Albert Cyup market both of which are very famous , only to find that both of these were not open that day, what a shame.

We then decided to go from one end to another end . From Amsteldijk tram station, we then started to walk to Wibaustrat metro station, one end of the station was closed and we were put to map reading test which we failed miserably and got to the wrong end , fortunately not long after we were corrected in  our direction by two haughty women in their 60's. 

We took metro 54 from Wibaustart to Biljmer Arena , which was just another arena where a football match had just completed and was completely full with people.

Two hours later , we took another metro back to central station where we completed our lunch and headed back to boarding our coach back to London.

We left Amsterdam in a good mood , knowing fully that we did not even explore 1% of the city . We took heart to the fact that in 1 1/2 days that we had , we put the time to full use . Specifically we were happy this trip was completely unplanned.

There were many highlights of the trip but one the best that we enjoyed was a WIFI connectivity in the middle of the sea where i was able to finish about 80% of this blog on my iphone , isn't that cool!

Back in London and finishing up this blog , am already thinking where next !

The Tour continues.....

Innovation Distinguishes a Leader & a Follower - Steve Jobs - R.I.P.- Dedication

This post is a dedication to " The Most Famous Maestro of Micro- Steve Jobs" .

The quote at the start of this blog " The Most Famous Maestro of Micro" was a famous line in 1982 Time Magazine and that line was dedicated to the man who was instrumental in making personal computing fun . That same year and in the same issue was when Time named "Personal Computer" as the man of the year , a title shared by very eminent persona of the world. 

I was one year old kid in 1982 and even at that point in time Steve could see years ahead , he could anticipate the PC & Internet revolution . Am 30 now and we are still speaking about him , such is his sheer brilliance.

I was inspired by three things in Steve Jobs

• His charisma in making people listen to him , putting persuasive & market skills to its best use

He told John Sculley, former CEO of Pepsi co this famous phrase " Do you want to sell Sugar Water for rest of your life or do you want to come with me to change the world". This made John to make up his mind and join Apple , such was his persuasive power.

• " Stay Hungry , Stay Foolish" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

I do not want to comment on this , i would leave it up to you to decide after watching that Video.

• Not to forget the mind blowing products that he helped design

They were simply brilliant and were always a generation ahead & always caught competitors napping, some videos that show why he always looked a generation ahead

1. Apple Macintosh 1984 ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
2. Ipod - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs
3. Iphone -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYlhShD2oQ

He really was an inspiration , he has shown the world to think beyond traditional boundaries , the products he helped create has shown what that means .

He did not only inspire ordinary people like me but he even inspired extra ordinary people like Bills Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

He did not go without fair share of criticism. Whatever being said , Steve was an inspiration to many and has been credited to have left this world a better place to stay.

You certainly have done something wonderful to this world Steve.

May your soul rest in peace.

"Iam in the toilet at Home " said one Facebook post!

That comment drove me nuts & thankfully gave me a subject to blog about this week.

Social Networking sites are we using it responsibly?

If you take world events in the past twelve months , roughly the answer would be divided between Yes & No.

Why do i say the answer is divided , lets take few examples in the recent past.

The first explosive use of social networking site like Facebook & Twitter were put to best use in the not so long ago issues that had occurred in the middle east , the use was so optimized and powerful that long running dictatorial regimes were bought down and peoples voices were made to be heard , it was first such use of the new age technology use with resounding success in the political arena . This was also a classic case of using , social networking for social causes and positive outcomes, which is expected to drive the future of middle east and other countries as more and more people start using social networking.

On the other hand just about a month back , riots in the UK exacerbated due to the active use of social networking sites , of course blackberry messenger was blamed but it goes without saying the trigger was social networking sites .

Both these events shook the world and world leaders took note of the power of social medial very seriously.

Having followed both these events, i see that social networking sites are tools for us , not so dissimilar to other things that have evolved over a period of time and its up to us to use it to benefit the human kind as has been demonstrated in the middle east .

So to say , its all in the users hands how the tool is put to use , my strong view is that the tool has to be used responsibly and not to be used to update status such as " am in the toilet at home ",world doesn't need to know when one pees , people have better job to do and can use their time little more fruitfully.

Lets not be preposterous in using the tool irresponsibly , lets use one of gods greatest gift to us i.e. The Brian and use the tool more sanely.

Condicio sine qua non

The above Latin phrase literally translates to - ' Condition without which not ' or more easily 'an essential condition or a requirement'.

Why do i write a blog on such a phrase? I wanted to write about this for a while but now i think is the right time.

During my last ten years of work experience , one thing my managers have thought me is that never consider yourself 'Indispensable' , anyone in any organisation however senior or knowledgeable is always ' dispensable'.

In my early days of my career , i built up reasonably solid expertise in my line of work and as a normal human being i used to work hard and had that feeling that iam one of the most important person and considered myself all-important .

As our psychology dictates, we homosapiens are fond of having control and the knowledge which we build up comes out as making us believe we are indispensable and have absolute control in our line of work.

This habit in me continued for a while and without my knowledge i was being monitored. One fine day during late 2006-07 i was called for a meeting.

During this discussion , this habit was being debated and suddenly like a thunder my boss fielded me one  attitude changing question " What happens if you die tomorrow? What will happen to your department" 

What a game changing question this was to be. I did not realize it until afterwards. I paused and spent a lot of time thinking about it . 

After that particular meeting and following days of pondering myself , i came to the most mature conclusion and decision which has helped me ever since. I said to myself , never ever would i consider myself ' Indispensable'.

It has also made me look at things in a very different angle and also has made me grow because the moment one considers he/she is not indispensable , we understand and learn the art of delegating which in turn fuels growth.

Why do i write this after such a long gap after the actual learning experience? Coincidentally, as i wrote in my last blog, my marriage forced me to take the longest ever holiday in my career and during this three weeks of holiday , world did not stop moving , the institution that i worked for continued to operate as normal,there were issues in my department which typically i would be involved in were solved without any issues and when i was back to work , i amalgamated into the department without any issues.

All in all , the lesson i learnt few years back was re-iterated /re-played back to me with brute force.

I just wanted to share this as its one of the most important lesson to understand and a very effective tip to keep in mind while working for any institution.

Theen Haftha Ka Chuthi Katham Aur School Shuru!!

So goes a dialogue in the movie Zindagi Na Milega Dubara , dialogue rendered by Hrithik Roshan in a pub somewhere in Seville in Spain .

This dialogue is now applicable for me , as i write this blog , i finish three long weeks of holiday from work. This is the first time in a decade of my work experience i have taken such a long holiday .

This holiday was special , as it marked the occasion of my marriage , i did not know how the three weeks passed , it has passed in a wink .

The chores of these three weeks were very different than any of my previous holidays. This three week period included preparing for the big day both in office and at my home in London. Which meant i had to complete all my office work before i went on holiday and also preparation at my apartment in London where i would welcome my better half, so had to do lot of preparation in anticipation of my new life, it was long hours for more than five weeks leading up to my departure from London.

Apart from the preparations here in London , when i touched down in Chennai, there were a flurry of activities and time was never enough.

I had to hand out invitations to my friends and colleagues who are always special to me and who have always treated me as some one special in their life.

Post the invitation hand out , i had to oblige to the customary state of things during pre nuptial time. Four  days prior to marriage passed in a whiz.

The week post marriage was all consumed either visiting temples to fulfill  my parents prayers to the almighty. Four days of week two went completing all pilgrimage and the rest of the week went about as i had to visit relatives after relatives to pay the customary post marriage respects and have food with them , i never have had so much food in my whole life than in those three days.

Week three was full of making sure that my better half gets accustomed to new country, culture and place. So it was all about making her comfortable by taking her out to super markets, showing her different malls and sitting down and planning, overall week three has made me a guide of a sort to my better half.

Am back to work from tomorrow and its going to be one heck of busy schedule for next few weeks as we lead up to plan and close out quarter four targets prior to year end.

Its going to be fun as i try to balance my new commitments at home and busy schedule at work , am sure i might need some advice from some of my counterparts in the married league , am sure they will lend me some invaluable advice.

Chutti katham aur School Shuru!!

Looking forward to it.

Marriage Makes Many Things

This phrase has been said numerous times but i never did understand nor accept that Marriage changes a mans lifestyle.

Now i can confidently say it does. I can confirm this from my very minimal experience so far.

How do i confirm this , what better way than take myself as an example.

Prior to my engagement my world was reading books, watching TV specially F1, cooking & of course not to forget the small but the most important activity of all , working !

Ever since engagement , reading has gone through the window, i have struggled to keep pace with reading. I have been pushing myself to complete a book over the last two months.

Apart from reading , F1 has taken back stage , i haven not seen last four races , something that would have been unheard of in the last seven years.  This was all due to lead-up to the big day.

Two of the most important things that i did normally as a bachelor took back stage , so some other things should have taken centre stage.

Yes , there were a few that took centre stage,  i'll try to summarize these .

First of all, i gave lot of importance to becoming lean and fit, not sure why but may be subconsciously i might have been thinking to look and feel good on the big day. I slogged myself in the gym and was pushing myself to be on strict diet, it was no surprise that i refrained from fried and junk foods for more than 3 months and in the process lost a whopping 8.5 Kgs.

With weight taking one part of importance , the other one was managing my finances , notwithstanding my usual thought process of being careful in what i spend, i became even more careful and started planning things in the process. this did benefit me a lot as come closer to the big day i had next to no financial issues, something am very proud of.

So , looking good, being more responsible becoming a part of daily life one more key ingredient became a part of my daily thought process.

Surprisingly and something that is not synonymous to me had happened , i started smiling a lot and becoming more and more romantic.

My daily thoughts were along the lines of  how can i keep my better half happy and which ideas would impress her. Ideas came in a flurry and i did many things which surprised me and for which i never knew i had the guts nor the talent.

As the big day came closer and closer i started understanding what my better half likes and dislikes. One of the most important aspects was cleanliness , i slogged myself to keep my apartment spot on , neat and tidy.

Having said all that and now that the big day has come and gone , i look back and can affirm that marriage has definitely changed me!

Has it changed me for the better , maybe not because i looked at my life differently during phase 1 of my life & now my life is different , I've changed just because my priorities have changed.

So far so good, will i sustain this, only time will tell.

Note:- Sorry that i hadn't blogged for long ,  i will try and be back to normal asap.

A Week of Learning

What a week its been for me.

Its been a very hectic week , most of my time has been consumed by meetings . On some days i was in meetings back to back and the situation was so bad that i had no time for lunch , there were days when i had just two slices of bread for lunch or have lunch at 16:00, it was pure madness.

I started thinking if i were just in meetings all day , when would i ever get time to do my work , on Wednesday & Thursday i had to stay back for three hours more than normal just to ensure that i catch-up with emails and complete my work. 

One of the key learning for this week has been the art of " Delegation" . I have had the misconception of this word , i have always thought that if you delegate , you show incompetence, on the contrary i found out that delegation works more positively both for oneself and subordinates.

For the self, it helps in freeing up time to concentrate on critical things and delegate important things to the subordinate  and for the subordinate it is a matter of proving his/her capability upwards and they feel empowered, its a win-win situation made better by delegating rather than making it worse by not delegating and non been able to deliver on key things.

It has been a very key learning point for me this week. Delegate, i have seen it work for my superiors , however for reasons unknown or unexplainable , i haven't been able to use that effectively, lesson learnt, hopefully i put that to practice.

The second learning this week has been about " internal accounting" . I have never been dragged into the accounting madness prior to last few weeks but as a manager , it is one of the key strengths to posses.

It was chaos in my mind as i tried to fathom the numbers . Cutting the long story short, i was involved i understanding costs which were paid out and which was allocated internally and to try and reconcile them , just an exercise to keep the house in order.

It was mayhem , i just could not get head or tail around the numbers presented it to me and words like true up, 9+3 , run-rate etc etc.

I used to mock at people when they give big analysis post budget seasons but not anymore , its not the easiest of things to do. 

Compounding the problem was to reconcile postings which originated in one currency but was accounted for in a different currency e.g. invoices in $ but posted on GBP , where in different rules come into play e.g. postings in GBP need to include VAT for the services etc , exchange rate fluctuations. 

Another complex dimension to this problem was the services provided by one side of the organization to another could be complicated by the fact that the service provider and the receiver might be different legal entities under the same parent.

Prima facia it looked as though it was play with numbers and made convoluted by the manner in which it was executed  but when i got down to the nitty-gritty of things it did make sense to me and was no longer a walk in the park which i expected it to be.

It was a significant learning experience to get my hand dirty on the numbers .

Another key learning was "Strategy "  and how people at the top of the organization think. I was involved in some strategy discussions last week , it was just hard for me to pull my mind to a step above and think on certain tasks without going into hands on details.

It was extremely hard . Its not over yet , i am  going to be involved in few key global strategy,  whole of next week, its going to be fun and am sure to learn lots more. Of course strategy without political dimension and discussion isn't complete but that is for a different blog.

What a week!