TEDx Chennai

Hey folks,

For the last two months or so, I’ve been trying to help out in organising what is India’s first ever TEDx event.

For starters, lemme explain what TEDx is. I’ll have to start off with TED.

TED is an invitational conference that started in the US in 1984. It is an initiative that promotes ideas that are worth spreading. There are a set of speakers who’re carefully chosen to be some of the best, in terms of their ideas. And then, there is the audience. The members of the audience are also carefully chosen to be the best-in-class. All this is to ensure that ideas translate into conversations that matter and actions that bring about change.

The registration fee for a TED Global Conference is about $6000. Wait, don’t jump yet. Everyone who’s ready to pay the money isn’t eligible! TED picks those that are eligible. There is even a popular argument that TED is too elitist. But I think they can afford to be that elitist or overly-selective in order to ensure amazing quality. You would better understand if you see a TED video. Go down to TED and watch a video now.

Now, apart from TED Global Conferences, there are also TED Conferences held in specific countries. This year it is taking place at the Infosys campus in Mysore. Find out more about TED India, here.

Apart from both the above Conferences, TED has a provision for independent communities to organise TED style talks in their own geographical locations. This is the TEDx. Naturally, TEDx events are not organised by the guys at TED. They’re organised by some independent group of people who’re passionate about bringing TED to their communities and about Ideas that are worth talking about.

Having said all that, let me tell you now that TEDx is coming to Chennai very soon! I’m part of a small team of folks that are keen on bringing TEDx to Chennai. We’ve been working on it for the past 3 months and it’s taken good shape now. So, here’s TEDx Chennai.

TEDx Chennai will take place at the IC&SR Auditorium inside IIT Madras on November 29th 2009 (Sunday). It will be a one-day-event and all the speakers are being hand-picked to ensure a very interesting experience for everyone.

Tickets are running out! So, do hurry to secure yourself a seat!

Yours Skeptically,

A wow weekend evening

Hey folks,

As promised earlier, here’s the post on last Sunday’s meetup.

The original plan was to meetup with Srinath (mainly to catch up with him) but also to cheer up the dude. He’s slogging his ass off at work and we (me and Vinay) couldn’t just leave him at that.

So, Yours Skeptically, just thought he’d plan a surprise party on the beach with a lot of common people and cheer up Srinath in a big way. But, as randomness would have it, Yours Skeptically, screwed up in his own unique way! Also, people like Teal, LVS and a few others opted out at the last minute, due to who-knows-what reasons!

So, the plan came down to me and Vinay meeting Srinath on the beach. Vinay suggested that the local Twitter user group was meeting nearby to celebrate Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s birthdays. Being the shy type, I initially hesitated. But, Vinay ‘compelled’, ‘persistently insisted’ and ‘literally dragged’ me there. Srinath had no issues with coming there, from the beginning.

Again, being the busy dude, Srinath said he would ‘confirm’ the plan by 4 PM. He promptly did so. Yours Skeptically was sleeping when he sent the confirmation SMS. So, had to get up, grab some grub and rush to the ’spot’!

I reached the Spencer’s Daily outlet in Besant Nagar and found Srinath waiting there for me promptly. We walked to the beach talking usual crap

It was nice talking to the fellow in person after a loooooooong time. We caught up on some old times. A few leg pullings et al.

Being the busier dude, Vinay turned up at 6 30 for a meeting scheduled at 5 30 PM. Payan periya aal aaittaan. Navin Iyer ku laam website design pannaraan! paah!

Srinath posing perfectly. Me looking at the scenery. Trick photography!

Then, we had a photo-shoot on the beach. Vinay is still uploading his pics from that session, one pic for every 3-4 days! Sustainable content delivery paradigm aamaa. Mokkai naai!

As we were pulling each others’ legs, Saranyan called up and asked where we were. I had informed him that I’ll be in his area in the evening and invited him sincerely for the Chennai Tweetup. To my luck, he agreed.

Srinath and I walked towards the Murugan Idli Shop on Bessie Beach Road, to meet Saranyan and go down to the Tweetup. Vinay, meanwhile, sped past us on his bike (scootie pep plus pink colour)!

He stopped by for Srinath to hitch a ride upto Mast Kalandhar, where the meetup was taking place. Meanwhile, me and Saranyan were talking about all kinds of stuff ranging from the French Revolution to Robin Williams’ stand-up comedy!

The generous dude, Vinay, dropped Srinath off at Mast Kalandhar and came back to pick up me and Saranyan. And, Saranyan, being the oh-so-accomodative guy, opted to walk. We had to use a few choicest swear words to ‘persuade’ him into getting onto the bike. So, three people on a bike driven by someone like Vinay. Need I say more?!

We landed at Mast Kalandhar about a minute later. Srinath was there with the camera and we took ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ style pics on Vinay’s bike!

Vinay and Saranyan posing perfectly. Me staring at scenery(?!)

Prakash stepped out of the restaurant and greeted us. Nice dude, I must say. Very gentle mannered. Works for Symantec, btw. So, now you know whom to kick if your Norton Antivirus doesn’t work well!

We then walked into the restaurant and spotted 2 tables worth of people (~ 10-12), all pepped up to smash the cake on Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s face! We then introduced ourselves to Aravind Kumar, Raja (I knew him already), Shiv Ranjan, Ratz, Magesh, Benedict and the rest of the gang.

Then, orey the cake cuttings, cake hittings, cake eatings only!

Srinath had to leave early and Vinay went to drop him. Meanwhile, me, Saranyan, Raja and Magesh mixed up our orders and ended up drinking each others’ drinks!

Saranyan and I were waiting for Raja to be done with his drink. Once he was done, we bye’d the gang and left the place. Stomach was making strange sounds. Then, I realised the drink I had was an apetizer! WTF mode.

Came down and spotted Vinay waiting for me and Saranyan across the road. Rushed, got onto his bike and went to AAB for a more economical, more filling dinner. Had a lot of ROTFL moments there, expecially at the billing counter and then while eating.

Once we were done eating, I had to leave with Vinay. We bye’d Saranyan and sped away towards the ‘heart of the city’!

Vinay then took an amazingly complicated route and dropped me in T Nagar. I got hold of a Share Auto from there. Sandhya kept me occupied on the phone during the lonesome Share Auto ride. Pretty surprising to find a Share Auto go empty for a long time around 9 PM in the night on a Sunday THIS close to Diwali. Folks at home were wow. Why? Because I had returned home much earlier than what I had informed prior to leaving. Maybe I should give them more of those wow moments!

Rest later.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. A totally amazing time we had that day, as may be evident from the tone of the post above.

Festivity and Technology

Hey folks,

I have always been an ardent supporter of technology and an advocate of its inherent positives. But, today, I am going over to the other side to talk about how technology has mechanised the traditions of Indian festivity to a sizeable extent.

I woke up today morning to find my GMail Inbox overflowing with Diwali ‘wishes’ emails. Some of them were personalised and had content known only to myself and the sender. But, by and large, most of them had a generic ‘wish’ and were most probably sent out as a broadcast.

I sat down to think how things used to be (just about) 7-8 years ago! Sending emails was only a means to reach out to expats where the cost of an ISD call was unreasonably high. That is an understandably reasonable use of technology.

Also, speaking ideologically (like Srinath), a wish is a genuine transfer of goodwill from the heart that is converted to a verbal or textual form in order to be able to be communicated across. However, I can still wish Srinath wins in life all the time, without letting him know. Both of us still know that we would support each other irrespective of our own states of existence or any other tangible aspect of life. We have never wished each other for anything in the last 4-5 years. This goes for Arun, LVS, Pavithra, Ash, (the other) Srinath et all too! Sowmiya is a little particular about wishes, though. I still don’t wish her. But again, we know we’re there for each other irrespective of the presence or absence of any tangible aspect of life!

Today, I had to import all my business contacts and send them ‘Diwali greetings’. I did it. For reasons best left untold here.

But ever since I hit that ‘Send’ button, I kinda felt a bit uncomfortable about the lack of personalization and unconditional genuineness in such a wish.

So, here’s the official line. I have now taken a resolution to send out personalised emails to the folks (whose names are) mentioned above and to a select few (who’ve made a difference to my life) other than them.

Why email? Why not a phone call? You may ask. I chose to use the same ‘cold’ and ‘impersonal’ medium to create goodwill in a way that’s similar to a good old phone call. Just to prove one point I’ve always advocated, ‘Technology is only a medium, a tool. How it is used could drastically change the way you or me or the World function(s)’.

What better a way to announce this than a good old blog post?!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Please gimme some time, guys! Writing personalized emails back-to-back isn’t an easy task!

The brighter side of life

Hey folks,

I had written a post yesterday night(or today early morning), after a long time. But, it was too serious and I felt kinda bad. So, here’s a post with all the nice things.

Class is getting less rigorous and more funny now-a-days. Many thanks to Saranyan, Sandhya, Arun, Virus, Poorna, Anand et al for keeping me cheerfully occupied on campus.

I kinda initiated a small process to change the content on my institute’s website. The content was/is pretty old, dry and boring. So, I volunteered and wrote fresh content for the website with a lot more contemporary language. It was a nice process of learning, collaborating with the management and arriving at trade-offs on what words to use where without affecting the freshness of the content. I kinda learnt the difference in thought process between our generation and the previous one. It is VERY visible, mind you!

I also showed them how there was no original ‘controllable’ content with respect to my institute, on Google’s first SERP. I myself felt the approach was a bit rude but it was the best one I could use to convince them to have a strong Social Media presence. I gave the management a plan that was approved provisionally. Haven’t begun work on it yet. Will do, after the mini-vacation. The plan is pretty strong and clear. I’m trying to document the plan into a 6-7 post series for the Electrosocial Blog. Let’s see. Should be done soon.

The first trimester exams came and went. With a lot of fanfare, I must admit. Let’s stop talking about it now, shall we?!

Had a lot of fun meeting Saranyan, Vinay and Srinath over a relaxed Sunday breeze at Bessie Beach. Separate post coming up on that!

Woke up to a wild idea one fine morning and ended up thinking on it all week. It’s grown well into a fine, neat plan now. Roped in LVS and Vinay. We’re now trying to see if we can make it a startup company, our first in life (together and individually). Again, let’s see. Should happen mostly.

TEDxChennai is shaping up VERY well. I’m kinda proud to be one of the active organisers! IIT Madras and RTBI have agreed to co-host the event. So, it’s slated to happen at the IC&SR Auditorium inside IIT Madras on November 29th, 2009. We are now looking into the nitty-gritties of the event. Hopefully, things should fall into place soon. Made some nice friends as a result of this commitment! Raja, Jo, Balajee, Benny and the big man himself, Kiruba!

There was initially a plan to work on a research paper on (a topic in) Branding. I had bootstrapped the idea but had to let go of it temporarily, for reasons best left untold here. During the mini vacation, I had the chance to speak to Milind about it and managed to get a lot of gyaan. Roped in Saranyan, the thalaivar. Will begin preliminary work on it soon. Doesn’t look like it’ll get done in anytime within a year. So, this is one of my longer commitments. But the kind of work involved is really wow. Should keep me motivated to work.

Heard of the NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 and checked out the details. Sounded wow. Roped in Saranyan and registered sincerely, as Students. Macho discounts, I tell you! And, amazing value. Can’t wait to catch Guy Kawasaki! So, will be out of town on October 27th and 28th 2009. Bengaluru, here we come!

Found some amazing people to connect with, on Twitter. Mostly as a result of me attending the Chennai Tweetup on 11th October at Mast Kalandhar. A few more people from LinkedIn and Facebook.

Raja (the total thalaivar) sent me an invite to Google Wave, a deed for which I’d prolly waive the treat he owes me!

Will write more in another post.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Separate posts on (second) college life, Google Wave, nice people I’ve met in the last 3 months, Social Media addiction, the Bessie Beach meetup et al would come up in the next few days!

Man and Emotions

Hey folks,

It’s been quite a long time since I posted on this blog. Not that I’ve been busy, just didn’t have the inclination to sit down and post. A lot of draft posts lined up but nothing completed. To those of you looking for a cheerful light-hearted post, don’t bother reading further. This isn’t it. On the other hand, if you’d care to know what’s been going on in my life in the last 3 weeks, please read further.

The last 3 months in life have been totally amazing. Not only on the work front but also w.r.t personal life. People who’re close to me would know that I’m a born Leo. Arun would vouch for how short-tempered I used to be whilst in college. Probably, Sathya might vouch for it too.

The day myself and Srinath started Sit, to discuss our personal value and belief systems on a quasi-public platform, we (knowingly or unknowingly) ushered into our lives a movement towards increased tolerance and openness. To many, this might sound like a statement worth ridicule. But to the few who have known either (or both) of us well pre and post Sit, the difference would be quite visible.

To this day, there are people in my circle who laud this openness and there are people who criticise it to the core. The truth is that neither of them is wrong. I chose to go ahead with the openness because somewhere inside me, it felt good to continually keep changing for the better. Irrespective of who or what brought about the change.

About three months ago, I told Srinath I would make the first ever attempt in life to remain a lot more patient. To tolerate a lot more destructive and constructive criticism. To remain calm and react to them with a balanced state of mind. A lot of people were responsible for this little attempt. Namely, Dr Annamalai from Gandhi Study Centre, Milind Jadhav, Srinath himself and finally, my greatest inspiration in life, M K Gandhi.

Randomness has been my best friend and worst enemy, both at the same time. It waited for 22 long years to let the above mentioned piece of wisdom dawn upon me. But, fortunately, it gave me enough chances to test my patience and my conviction towards the word I gave to Srinath.

As my Facebook and Twitter trail would indicate, work-life has had a lot of positive progress. So much so, that a few people who had written me off have bothered to contact me and let me know I’m doing a good job. Nice. But there have also been some really pressurising times when I used to work hours together for no apparent progress to take place.

Those pressurising times made my process of transition towards a calm, balanced self a bit more elusive. Every human being has an emotional high point and every human being makes mistakes. But, fortunately or unfortunately, they had to take place at the same time in my life. This led to a lot of unnecessary complications and a lot of emotional pressure.

I have always kinda had a fear of offending people. As a result, (in recent times) an apology from my side would never be a moment too late, if the mistake is/was on my part. Sometimes, the apologies would get a little too much. People are different. So, there is also a chance that someone would get offended by an excessive apology!

It is a little sad that I’ve been completely ignorant of that fact in life till now! A little incident involving such a person created quite a bit of emotional pressure over 3 weeks of time. Srinath, Teal, Pavithra, Arun and LVS would remember this incident. They usually know everything there is to anything in my life. I didn’t bother telling Vinay, Vinay and SrinathC for (their respective obvious) reasons best left untold here. At best, they would’ve noticed that I wasn’t normal.

I have to kneel down and acknowledge the support that all of them provided to me during this rough patch in life. But for them, I would’ve lost my cool completely, long ago. A special thanks to Saranyan for telling me a few subtle points about my own personality. Some things I had failed to notice even after some introspection.

It was VERY difficult, trust me. But, I’ve kinda made it through the rough patch with as much patience and balance I could muster on my mind. Naturally, due to work life and its pressures, I would’ve had emotional high points and would’ve lost my cool. I felt like a naxal who wanted to return to society and lead a normal life. Society would never accept him initially. But, over a period of time, even Society would change seeing the conviction of the guy towards leading a normal life and towards patiently awaiting forgiving. Though these emotional high points led to a lot of complications, all it took was one single long conversation to set things straight.

The first time I waited patiently for a person in life, it has turned out to be a nice outcome. The first time I tried to consciously maintain the balance of tolerance and self-respect-breach. The first time I stepped forward to admit all my mistakes upfront. The first time I continued to show respect for someone who was totally pissed off with me and kinda ignoring me. This moment in time, as I’m typing this post, I feel a sense of victory I have never ever felt before in life.

Not even when I’ve done my best feats and not even when I’ve won prizes. This seems beyond all that. The sense that I have won trying to do something I never believed I could do, only 3 months ago. It is truly an amazing experience.

Time might fly and people might come and go in my life. This incident will stay as the one that lead my transformation towards greater tolerance, greater patience and a stable balance of emotions.

I just felt like putting this up as a regular blog post. No specific reasons. More of gut feeling.

Will post in the coming weeks about a lot of positive and VERY happy things.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I have tried my best to put down the outline of incidents. The granular details need not be dealt with here. There is an alternate space for that.

Another day, another life

Hey folks,

I had just gone down to Chittur (in Andhra Pradesh) as a result of family protocol to attend a relative’s house-warming ceremony.

Now, let’s not delve into why it’s called a house-warming ceremony. It was certainly not warm, it was freakin’ hot! What with all the smoke and fumes, in an otherwise scorching hot day!

There were quite a few thoughts that were sparked off on my mind as a result of experiences on these 2 days. Let me now write about the first of the thoughts.

These one-and-a-half days have made me realise what kind of a pathetic handicap I have. It was so difficult passing time without a computer and internet access that I was more eddicted to checking email than what Obama was said to be! Thanks to GPRS, I had access to my mailbox, atleast.

I’m not irritated at having spent a day there as such. It has helped me realise an addiction, so strong and so captivating, that I never knew I had.

This trip (by car from Chennai to Chittur and back) has also made me realise that I’m not as insensitive to the long-car-journey-fatigue as I has estimated myself to be. I slept like a log on Sunday afternoon after reaching the place!

In all, a good learning experience. Will post later. This week looks like mad work!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. My mid-trimester exams have ended and I have done better than I expected in 6 of the 7 subjects. Economics, however, looks very sad!

The Chronicles of Insomnia

Hey folks,

This is my first blog post from college. I’m kinda having fun here. Not started studying, as may be evident from the long gtalk sessions!

It’s been a nice month, this one. I’ve realised that I was more observant than I had ever imagined. I had managed to notice a lot of things that others seemingly missed. Things that relate to most people’s lives for that matter.

Other than that, there has been a lot of progress on the work front. A social media internship for a company called Electrosocial has been the most happening thing for the last 2-3 weeks. I’m kinda liking it a lot. The content is delivered twice a week and packs a lot of insight with relevant links for further reading. I was even asked to post once on their blog and contrary to my guest-post record, the post has come out very well!

You can find it here. About a month of the internship is left and I think it’s only going to be more interesting!

I also got my hands dirty with a small-time market research project for the college involving life insurance. Learnt a lot of things about professionalism and how it doesn’t come with age and 2 years IT work experience for certain people. A lot of networking with some CXOs from the insurance industry as well. Not that I knew enough about insurance to engage them in conversations!

Other than that, I’ve kinda dusted my old stuff a bit and have started working on a small idea I had in the past. I’ve luckily found people to work on it with, this time. So, you can expect a post on that in the future on this blog. It would involve research, more research and even more research. But not the typical geek nerd research! This is more of logical analysis relating to life.

Me and 2 other people here have kinda developed a business idea and would be working on polishing it soon. Hope that works out as well. It’s a nice thing and fits the current market well. There is a funny thingie here! We had actually spent serious time researching for some business ideas and we thought of this one while randomly chit-chatting in class!

I’m going to be involved in organising an event in Chennai in November. Though this is still in the preliminary stages, I’m sure it would pick up momentum in the coming weeks and would be an amazingly fun experience for me.

A couple of conferences, some contests, (hopefully) one research paper, a video for Sit and some work for Mozilla are other stuff in the pipeline.

This post also serves as a reminder for me. I tend to get a little too forgetful and irresponsible if I don’t have my commitments listed in a single place!

As for the post title, I’m kinda experiencing early signs of insomnia. It’s a state I’ve forced onto myself, in a way. I’m hoping to take a week off sometime in end August. Let’s see if that works out!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Most of the content on this post was completed in college but the computer guy got mad and drove me off the lab. Apparently, I hear he hates working. Understandable. India still has a lot of scope for change!

When loved ones part with

Hey folks,

Yes, this is one thing that all of us wish doesn’t happen to us. The loss of a loved one. But given the abundance of randomness in life and the fact that it’s beyond human comprehension and control, one needs to cope with everything and life must just go on.

It is interesting to see a workshop being done on this. Most of us take this ‘coping with’ thing on an ad-hoc basis and don’t really realise the need to be prepared to bounce back into life after such a calamity. I am sure that attending such a workshop would be of immense use, not only when the calamity happens in your own life but when it happens in the life of someone you value a lot. This is more of a chain reaction but it is worth the process. Most of the initiatives I support are slow organic chain-reaction-based initiatives. I wish to see this one in such a way too.

Anyway, I’ve attached a DOC file about the workshop, here. Kindly look into it and see if you can attend the workshop. It’s about a month away, on July 17th and 18th. So, don’t say you weren’t informed well in advance!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. The mini-workshops organised by Career Cats have been postponed. Will post again when they’re scheduled.

Reaching out

Hey folks,

A recent unpleasant happening in my dad’s extended family has totally shaken my belief system and has pushed me to look at the rest of the World with a lot more compassion and care.

I was thrown awake to the rude fact that the best metric to judge the quality of one’s personality is the number of people who genuinely cry when he is no more. This fact just made me see my own ‘close’ circle in a different way.

So, here it goes. If I have ever hurt your sentiments or have ever imposed my views upon you or have ever been a complete asshole, I unconditionally apologise for the same and assure you that I would put my best effort to see that I change for the better. I would also like to let each one of you know that I am there for you and that I shall help you out in whatever way that is best possible. I assure that I will give you a shoulder to cry on and a hand to pull you up when you’re down.

However, although I don’t expect any tangible return, I would feel better if I could get a little care from your side too. A pat-on-the-back occasionally and a good joke every now and then.

In the upcoming week, I shall personally contact every single soul I value and shall do my bit to make his/her life happier and easier. For others, I’m always there. All you have to do is just ask!

On a more serious note, I request all of you to make it a habit to get a master health checkup done every year on a recurring basis. In the most unlikely of cases, this should cost you around 5k. It is usually lesser than that, I think.

I also request you all to put in some effort and try to avoid procrastinating things. I am doing that from this very moment onwards. I will try hard not to procrastinate in life. For all you know, I might not be there to execute things tomorrow.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I hope this post finds you all in good health and a pleasant state of mind.

Protocol, My Foot!

Hey folks,

I had the opportunity to talk to a self-made entrepreneur who tried his hand at politics during the recent elections, from Chennai. Contrary to public perception, this guy is accessible just on paper. His contact details have been put up in the public domain, yes. But little do people realise that there is a whale of difference between approachability and accessibility!

He is often portrayed as the man who rose to fame from a very humble background. I have no heart to deny that. That is a success story that needs to be documented for future entrepreneurs to read, no doubt. But many people have two sides no?

Behind that ‘next door guy’ image, this man has a far darker side. He is someone who expects to be given paramount importance wherever he goes. He expects limelight, fame, popularity, attention and the ‘wow’ factor wherever he goes!

The man can’t even talk proper English but goes around flaunting his educational background! I am tempted to think that every educational institution, however great it might be, has some amount of error in choosing candidates, about 5 misfit people out of every 100 or so. I guess this guy got into those places because of such an error factor.

A standing example of the fact that appearances are deceptive, this man actually contested in elections and won nearly 16000 votes. I can understand if illiterate folks have no etiquette and a lot of ego, because they ain’t educated, dammit! Srinath (Boss) used to keep telling me years ago that a good proportion of the fellows passing out of the country’s topmost educational institutions add no value to the country but have a very high ego. I realise that now, thoroughly!

I am even prompted to believe that illiterate (or lesser literate) folks would do a better job managing the country’s government than well educated fellows like this entrepreneur!

Of course, I wasn’t supporting him at all during the elections. I even argued with one of my juniors, who was supporting this guy during elections, saying this guy can’t make one hell of a difference. The man has no track record doing any proper societal service, either physical or intellectual! Yet, he shamefully claims that he is going to save the country from greedy politicians! Dude, have you ever done some self-introspection at all in life? Have you atleast heard of the word ‘Self Introspection’ ?

Learning: Never ever ever buy the face value that people depict! Such a value is almost never the real one! Watch out for the real sides of people!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. It’s such a coincidence that I’ve known a couple more people who passed out from the same institutions as this guy, very well for a long time. They’re such nice people that I’m guessing the error-rate theory I’ve come up with has to be true, indeed!

Of Joe and Hari!

Hey folks,

I just happened to get introduced to the idea of a Johari Window by Milind and decided to get mine through a service. What you see below are the results of my window after some 6 people filled it up. To fill it up go to this page.

Arena (known to self and others) adaptable, cheerful, logical, observant	Blind Spot (known only to others) able, clever, complex, confident, dignified, energetic, friendly, helpful, intelligent, introverted, knowledgeable, modest, nervous, organised, reflective, spontaneous, witty
Façade (known only to self) powerful, trustworthy	Unknown (known to nobody) accepting, bold, brave, calm, caring, dependable, extroverted, giving, happy, idealistic, independent, ingenious, kind, loving, mature, patient, proud, quiet, relaxed, religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly, sympathetic, tense, warm, wise

Dominant Traits

66% of people agree that Prashanth Krishnaswami is cheerful

All Percentages

able (16%) accepting (0%) adaptable (50%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (0%) caring (0%) cheerful (66%) clever (16%) complex (16%) confident (16%) dependable (0%) dignified (16%) energetic (33%) extroverted (0%) friendly (33%) giving (0%) happy (0%) helpful (16%) idealistic (0%) independent (0%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (33%) introverted (16%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (50%) logical (16%) loving (0%) mature (0%) modest (16%) nervous (16%) observant (33%) organised (33%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (16%) relaxed (0%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (0%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (0%) shy (0%) silly (0%) spontaneous (16%) sympathetic (0%) tense (0%) trustworthy (0%) warm (0%) wise (0%) witty (16%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 1.6.2009, using data from 6 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view Prashanth Krishnaswami’s full data.

I suggest you all try it out too.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I am not responsible for the views of the people who filled up this window!

P.P.S. I will be posting on Sit’s unconference and the learning I gained while organized it, in the upcoming weeks as a series of posts.

Stand & Deliver

Hey folks,

I’m going to write about a slightly unpleasant thing today. In the last few months, I’ve kind-of metamorphosed well from a ‘blogger’ to a ‘freelance content writer’. Apart from that, I’ve taken the liberty to help out some social and business initiatives by giving thought, logistic and contact support. Let’s keep that fact aside now.

From what a lot of people would know of me, I always love it if people tell me their intentions upfront. Due to a recent spree of events, I’ve been baffled by the inability of people to use the word ‘no’ when they need to use it!

I have been involved in organizing a small city-level invitational discussion-based event, for ‘Sit’, for the past 2 months. It has been a slowly progressing thing and has given me enough learning opportunities.

During the course of the 2 months leading upto this very day, I have had atleast 3 dozen people pledging their full support towards this event, atleast 2 dozen people vowing to dedicate their life and soul towards the success of this event and about  a dozen people ‘trying to help out actively’.

The final tally? Just 5-6 people working for the event.

I have learnt not to take any word or commitment from people unless they have a strong previous delivery record. I have learnt that there are enough individuals around us who commit and make no effort to deliver. I have learnt that there are people who have no guts to say they can’t deliver something when they can’t. I have learnt that I should not step into or undertake  any initiative unless I am confident that I can do the entire thing myself. And that any helping hand is only a value addition and isn’t really required.

This can be a cliched assumption but at the moment there is no better bet for me. Let’s see what learning tomorrow has in store for me!

Yours Skeptpically,

P.S. I’m sure those who are meant to understand the idea behind this post will certainly do so. So, there’s really no need to drop names and/or incidents.

P.P.S. Srinath, yes! I understand! I won’t say that “good friends” cliche stuff again! Point taken! Learning gained!

2008

This is my 22nd year of existence on the face of the Earth and I can, quite certainly, say that none has been as special as 2008 has been. There are a lot of reasons, good and bad.

The learning that I could get from experiences in 2008 was enormous. Something that has never happened to this extent so far.

Here’s what I’ve learnt.

1. Never exercise anger immediately. When feeling angry, postpone the impulsive action for 30 minutes. See if the anger still exists. If it does exist, go ahead. Otherwise, get on with life.

2. Always know clearly as to where to draw the line between friends and best friends and between friends and acquaintances.

3. Never judge a person by mere looks. That is the worst way to do it! At the same time, never under-estimate anyone. You never know who would become what tomorrow.

4. Be egoistic if you want to, but never show out anything. It doesn’t help one bit.

5. If someone praises you, don’t blindly brush aside the praise. If you deserve it, take it. There’s nothing wrong. If you dont’ deserve it, pass it on to someone who really deserves it.

6. Never say die. There is always more than one way to do anything in the World!

7. Never talk to people about your aspirations. Keep them within yourself until they have materialized!

8. Don’t postpone anything! You never know if you’d live to see the light of the next day.

9. There is no point talking/cribbing about anything. Get down to action! That’s all that matters!

10. Dont’ get over excited/enthusiastic about something and end up over-pressurizing/irritating peers.

11. Finally, Don’t assume XYZ is your friend/best-friend because XYZ talks well and treats you well. Never ever! There are a lot more things to it. Don’t decide hastily.

Apart from the gyan, there are also a few memorable incidents that have given me the energy to go on with life.

1. The fun that I had with Arun during the project days. We ended up putting slides in a different random order for each review and got the staff mad at us! Changed the algorithm on University Review day just before the External Examiner came to see our project! There were time when I lost interest in the project and Arun has to be given due credit for pulling me into it whenever necessary.

2. Signed up to become a Mozilla Campus Rep. Did little ground work in the end. Contributed to their forums and bug billboard.

3. Started this blog and ‘officially’ started blogging.

4. People like Srinath V, LVS, Arun, Pavithra, Sowmiya, Ash, Sathya and GAPP have influenced my life and lifestyle a lot. They have to be given due credit as well. Some have shown me my positive side and some have shown me my negative side. I’m grateful to each one of them in a distinct way.

5. Dropped Infy. This was something I never realized I could. It’s not something great when looked at in general. Lots of people do it now-a-days. But for me, I never knew I had the courage to take a risk in life. All these years, I’ve been a very safe player doing things the no/little risk way. The encouragement I got from friends has been something startling.

6. Worked hard for MBA. This is another thing I’ve not done in life. I’ve never WORKED HARD for something related to academics so far. Whatever I’ve gotten in School and College has been only what I could do with an ordinary effort, nothing phenominal. The first time I worked hard for academics was while preparing for my MBA entrance tests. For many, MBA entrance tests might not be tough at all. But for me, they are. I do have to admit that I’m just about above-average and I’ve worked really hard this year. Really hope something materializes in the coming days/months.

7. Started the SIT with Srinath V. This is another thing I’m proud of. We have managed to put the idea from paper to practise in these 8 months. We have learnt a lot lot through various experimental measures. Although it isn’t formally an NGO yet, I would say we’ve managed to create a good NGO model for the SIT through a (severely-battered) learning process over the last 8 months. We do have to thank all those who’ve stood with us and helped us do things without expecting any tangible returns. We have set a few personal targets w.r.t the SIT for 2009. I am only hoping that we manage to reach all of them soon.

8. This is more of a learning through a set of events. I’ve learnt that there is no use running behind a single short-sighted target most of the time. I was looking around for a single solid internship in marketing for about 2 long months. Around June-July I guess. Nothing really materialized. I lost heart and dropped the idea as such. Now, in hindsight, I realize that I have learnt a more about Marketing and People’s Minds in the last 6 months than what I had expected to learn from any internship. Maybe I would’ve learnt more from an internship but my personal expectations are met and that’s all that matters.

Apart from all this, there is one thing that has been a bit disappointing for me. Arun left India on July 28th 2008. I couldn’t get to meet him even once during his last week in India (before leaving for the US). Now, it looks like I won’t be able to meet him for the next 2 years! The same goes for Navneeth as well!

In all, 2008 has been THE single most important year in my life for both good and bad reasons. It will be long remembered in my mind as one year that largely shaped me.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I’m tired of using ubuntu live for 2 weeks now. Is Windows XP even available anywhere in Chennai?

XKCD!

This marks the beginning of something I always wanted to do. Relay some XKCD strips here.

Here’s the first one in the series.

M N Nambiar has passed away!

Hey folks!

It’s been a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally long time since I posted on this blog. Partly because I was trying to prepare for my MBA entrance exams and partly because I wanted to give a long break and see how much I missed blogging.

The last two-and-a-half months have been really good. Did a lot of things, met a lot of people, learnt a lot from precious experiences in life.

These are some of the things I did/learnt-to-do.

1. Learnt how to diagnose hardware problems and isolate them to the correct hardware on my desktop. Proved to be quite useful when my RAM didn’t work and when I had to change the battery of the CPU Clock.

2. Learnt a lot about journalism, how things are done in print media, what all background work has to be done to get oneself a news story.

3. Learnt that your background made no difference when it came to competitive exams. Found a guy who studied Cartography but is far better at Quants than I am!

4. Made a quiz for the SIT.

5. Worked on a good promotional presentation for the SIT. But dropped it because Ravi Chaitanya wasn’t available for consultation!

6. Finally, I’ve learnt how to remain silent about things and/or events and stay underground for as long as required.

Now, the nice people I’ve met.

1. Vijay Prabhat Kamalakara: Vijay is an entrepreneur and runs Storytrails India. I liked his company’s base idea and met him in person. Had a good discussion. Somehow we were impressed with each other and I tried my best to help him out in whatever way I could. He’s a really nice guy. Graduated from IIM Indore, but won’t mention a word about it unless you ask him.

2. Dr Mohan Rao: He’s one of the new members we got for the SIT as a result of that TOI news item. He’s a Senior Laproscopic Consultant at Malar Hospitals. One of the most humble and youthful persons I’ve seen! Brainy, has a different perspective towards everything in life! When he’s around you hardly feel he’s part of the previous generation! He’ll know someone everywhere be it Anna University or RadioOne!

3. Shyleswari Rao: She’s Dr Mohan’s wife. I’d say they’re a perfect couple! They gel well into any crowd whatever be it’s diversity/taste. She’s a HR trainer/Consultant and specializes in Behavioral Training/Research. Both Dr Mohan and Shyleswari add so much value to our (otherwise 20s perspective) discussions and are highly approachable in times of need!

4. Kisu Kisu Geetha: KKG is such an interesting person! Of course that isn’t her name. I’ve been asked to keep her identity a secret. KKG is the name of the show she did on Suryan FM from 2004 to 2006. Now, however she’s in a plum job at the World Bank! She’s a dancer, a trained Kalari fighter, a good singer and an aspiring manager! A very very good humane as well. Didn’t know her much till I referred a job from BIG FM to her. Eventually she didn’t take it but we became good friends!

5. Neeraj Agarwal: Neeraj is the guy who I sit with (mostly) during my TIME sessions. He’s the typical happy-go-lucky North Indian that you see in Hindi movies! Very helpful, very very cheerful and sometimes scores well in tests

6. Jay Patel: Jay is the Marketing Manager at Mozilla Corp, USA. I did not contribute much to the Firefox in India community until I graduated. Once I decided to put my internet activity on hold, the only real pastime that I had was to see what people posted on Mozilla’s forums and reply accordingly. Jay gave me a very good personalized letter of appreciation and I’m very grateful to him for that! Now, he’s also extended an offer for me to become a Mozilla Campus Reps Organizer. Dunno what that means as of now. Hope it’s something exciting. Jay is a very dynamic, young, marketing manager. Much like Aneesh Nair* at WorldSpace!

7. Pramodh Kumar, Ganapathy, Shankha Basu, Tapan Malhotra: These are people I spoke to regarding applying to various institutes. Pramodh and Ganapathy study at IFMR, Shankha at SP Jain and Tapan at XLRI. I am impressed by the amount of humility these people possess. Each one has excelled in his own way but would never tell you what he has done in life so far unless you specifically ask for it.

CAT

Apart from the people I’ve met in these 2.5 months, people like Sowmiya, Pavithra, Vaidehi, Ash, Arun, LVS , KKG, Akshaya, Sriram and Srinath have been very very supportive. Everytime I had a doubt or was down and out, they were always there to get me back on track. I’m very grateful to them for all that and I promise to be there with them during their tough times wherever I am and whatever I’m doing at those times! As for CAT, It hasn’t gone too well. Though I can still get thru some of my backup instis like BIMTECH, my dream instis like MICA, MDI, IMT-G are ruled out now. Of course, there are a lot more exams left and there’s a lot of stake left. Sunday is my day! It’s just a question of which Sunday it is, in the coming month!

Otherwise

I’m beginning to miss college life like anything. All that fun, frolic, entertainment, exams, culturals, vacations, results, agony, happiness! Wish I could go back in time once! Arun, Navneeth and Sudhir have gone to the US to chase their dreams and Sundar has gone to Infy. Raja is absconding and Praveen is busy staring at girls and trying to hit on them at his workplace. Life is a bit difficult when you have only Naveen to talk to!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. As for the post title, I wanted a lame excuse to continue my habit of writing a PostScript. Hence, the sad news!

* Aneesh Nair is the Marketing Manager for the southern region at WorldSpace India. People who worked with me during Rapture would remember the tough time we had convincing him into partnering with us! The guy has many cellphones and is always on the run

Life eej Hard?

It’s been a very long time since I wrote a blog post, let alone a meaningful one.

Have I lost interest in blogging? Have I no time? I really dunno. I’m not able to draw the line as to why exactly it’s been so.

Anyway, a lot of things have happened since then.

AUG 3rd 2008: I get hold of about 90 odd mock papers from Pavithra’s place.

AUG 4th 2008: I devise a plan of action for the next 3 weeks.

AUG 5th 2008: Implementation of the plan starts.

AUG 11th 2008: Infosys decides to call me for joining on Sept 8th 2008.

AUG 12th – AUG 24th 2008: I’m stuck in the worst dilemma of my life, so far.

AUG 14th 2008: I fill up and send the application for for MAT. There are no colleges worth applying under MAT. I’m just taking it to stay in the ‘exam mood’.

AUG 15th 2008: Landmark Quiz! yay! Going for a quiz after a really long time with LVS and Teal. We get about 21 on 40, a record high w.r.t our team.

AUG 16th  2008: The Times of India (Chennai Edition) carries a news story about the Society for Intellectual Thinking.

AUG 17th and AUG 24th 2008: A lot of new members of all ages and from all facets of society turn up for SIT meetings. Srinath and I are happy that things have finally kicked off big time!

AUG 24th 2008: I take the firm decision to set the Infosys offer aside and prepare hard for an MBA this year. A very difficult decision at this point in life for me. Also, a very difficult decision for the over-cautious and impulsive decision maker that I am. [ Of course, as always, I have the bus tickets to mysore and my Infy call letter hard copy. I can still take the offer if I want to! ]

Today, my typical day has a mock test from 9 – 12 AM, Sleep from 1 – 3 PM, Sectional workouts from 4 – 6 PM, TIME’s Crash Course from 6 30 – 8 30 PM, Sectional workouts from 10 30 PM – 2 AM. Finally, Sleep from 2 01 AM to about 8 AM. I squeeze in the Mock paper correction and analysis somehow somewhere in the middle.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. This time I’m skeptical about the fact that I won’t be able to score very well in CAT 2008.

I’m back! [but not in full form]

I can understand that it’s been a very long time since I wrote a good purposeful post on this blog. About 3 weeks or so.

I’ve seriously gotten a bit tight with my time management. I’ve put my hands into a lot of things and as usual, am trying to balance all things.

Infy hasn’t called yet and that has given me time to prep well for my MBA entrances. As far as speculations go, I would have to join Infy earliest by Oct first week. Until then, I’m hoping to do a good bit of prep.

One hour of browsing each in the morning, evening and night should do I guess. One movie a day should gimme enough entertainment. Folks at home are also ordering a STB/DTH system sometime this week. I will certainly have to walk the tight rope with that distraction. Let’s see. I am just hoping I can pull it off.

Other than all that, Arun has left to chase his dreams in the US. Navneeth and Sudhir are leaving this week. That leaves me with Raja, Sundar, Naveen and Praveen w.r.t my college gang. We’re in no position to leave India atleast for a year from now. So, that’s about it.

Although I don’t value any of the ‘day’s including my own birth’day’, Happy Friendship Day to you all!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. This is also not a purposeful post.

PSP!

Need I say more?

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

A Mixed Bag of Events

It’s been about 2 weeks since I posted on this blog. It’s a long hiatus considering the fact that I was posting once a day on this blog sometime back. A lot lot has happened in these 2 weeks.

The SIT blog:

I worked on the group blog here and learnt a thing or two about hacking Blogger template code. Also realized that creating templates manually was a very very long tiring process. The group blog is up and running now and I can take a slight backseat. The team writing there is a group of good friends and juniors. In the process of forming that team I realized who all really cared for me unconditionally and who all cared for me for the sake of maintaining contact. I was a bit shocked at how a few ‘friends’ reacted regarding the group blog.

Mock tests:

I got 229 on 300 in my first ever mock test attempt since December 2007. Happy news indeed! Somehow, I slipped down to 190s in the next two mocks. The mock I took yesterday didn’t go very well either. It looks like I’ve gotta put in a lot more work on my CAT prep. Gonna start Data Interpretation from today.

Rowdie Gang Treat:

Rowdie Gang is the gang of my best friends in college. We’re a gang of 10 people who always sit together inspite of our diverse branches. We met up after a long time. Sundar had missed the treat due to swelling inside his mouth due to a wisdom tooth disorientation. Praveen is busy at MphasiS getting trained and he missed this treat too. More on this treat will follow.

Arun-shopping-flop:

Arun and I set out one fine afternoon to Saravana Stores to get some budget gifts to distribute to nice people in college. I was to come to T Nagar and meet Arun there. It did happen, only his petrol tank broke from it’s framework and hung inside the scooter’s body! We had a tough time fixing it and finally tied it firmly in place with a mechanic’s help. A good 2 hours or more was wasted in this process and Arun still cribs about that! the whole plan flopped and we had to go to our respective houses.

Now Playing:

Srinath had told me that this song called ‘Anbe En Anbe’ from Dhaam Dhoom was really good to listen to. I got hold of that song and it’s playing in the background round-the-clock inside my room! It’s really good, I suggest that you guys listen to it once. It’s a typical Harris Jeyaraj song like ‘Unnale Unnale’. But I still like it.

Engineering Books:

My dad has been asking me to dispose off college books that I don’t need. We usually go down to a book reseller and drop off the books and take a few books in exchange. This time we disposed a lot of books and got a few old books in exchange for them. Dad was happy that he got hold of some good physics book and mum was happy that there was more free space in my bookshelf.

Apart from all these, I’ve made it a habit to download one movie every night (if possible) and watch it the next day. Depending on the quality of the movie, I either write it into a disc or delete it.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I also realized how nice a pleasant geek like Vijay Bhalaki is when compared to a few others I know!

I write like a Genius?

I was just going through this blog for sometime. I found a post on a website that calculates blog readability and all. I was just curious to see what would come for my blog. Hence, I tried it and here’s the result.

Go and check yours as well.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. The actual readability for my blog is this. I was just putting vetti scene

Yeah! Whatever!

I have always been this highly ambitious little guy. I know it’s a bit of a misfit now, but I was a lot like that back in early 6th sem upto end of 8th sem.

There was this company called Hexaware that came to my college for campus recruitment. That was the first company that came for my batch. Naturally I was excited that I was eligible to attend the recruitment process. I was very excited about the fact of getting placed whilst in third year.

I think it was February 1st 2007. About 160-165 people wrote the preliminary test. I did very badly. I had no touch with placement tests before and hence I thought one had to attempt as many questions as possible. I failed to do just that. I attempted only those that I knew properly. Surprisingly I made it through to the Group Discussion round. Again there, I thought I did pretty badly. I got through. The moderator was a person named Mr. Raghavan. I still suspect brahmin affinity in me clearing the GD. But, let’s leave that for now.

Then came the final round. I was interviewed by a person named Mr. Visvehswaraiyah. He was in his mid 70s. You heard me right! Apparently, he’s a popular placement consultant. He asked me to write 2 programs. I wrote one out of the two well. For the other, there was a more optimal way of doing it, he said. Finally, he concluded the interview saying “You’ve done well, ma. We’ll get back to you“.

Remember his last sentence. That has caught onto my life till today. Every meeting that ends with that sentence is a failure. No exceptions, no ifs, no buts. Literally, ALL the meetings that end with that line never end up with me as the beneficiary!

It didn’t strike me for long. Arun tells me it’s a typical HR way of saying “Better Luck Next Time!“. Srinath, however, tells me it’s the HR way of saying “Keep Your Fingers Crossed!“.

To all the HR Managers and their multi-meaning sentences, this is my kind request.

“Please don’t speak with a positive tone and give a negative decision. You never know how it hurts the candidate to have hope and get disappointed on-the-face!“

At-least for entry-level recruitment!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I can understand those HR managers who never show a reaction and say “Thank you for giving the interview. See you later” kind of things. I hate it when people frame sentences in such a way as to give hope to the candidate and then pull his/her legs by not hiring/allowing him/her. Be it a Job Interview or Acads Admission!

P.P.S Few other sentences like “We’ll work something out surely” and “You’re pretty impressive” are also unlucky w.r.t my meetings. Dammit!

I’m a noted economist now

It’s a small step for general mankind, but a giant leap for particularly me!

I was trying to shut down my comp to boot into the Windows CD and install Windows XP SP1. Just then, Raja M pinged me on gtalk. He asked me if I could write a small opinion on how inflation affected me. Me, being the noble and generous fellow, decided to oblige.

[Actually, I was literally craving to do it. But now that I'm into public life, I need to create an image for myself ]

He gave my number to a journalist. She called me and asked whether I could dictate the write-up, but I offered to email her. [You see I respect people a lot]. She wanted me to send a pic of myself too.

Then came the frantic rush! I didn’t have a good pic of my own self! I called Arun, he was not reachable. I called Teal, she was on a VoIP call. I called Raja Deepak, and thankfully he sent me 2 pics within 10 mins. I just cropped the image on GIMP and forwarded it to the journalist along with my ‘expert comments’.

I was hoping it would come tomorrow (sunday) because the press usually close their pages around 5 PM and this happened around 7 45 PM. I thought there was no possibility of it coming on paper today. But it has come.

The Times of India, Page 5. Roundabout the middle of the page, there is a face with a pleasant smile. Yep, that’s me!   To the left of my picture, is Raja M, the noble man who referred me to the journalist.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. The previous post has been removed due to popular public opinion. You see I respect PUBLIC opinion a lot.

Arun is in love!

I have been trying to tell the World that Arun is in love for quite a long time now and nobody believed me. He also kept it a low-key affair and kept denying it in public. But, Truth alone triumphs!

I have secured a screenshot of teal’s scrapbook which shows Arun accepting the fact that he is in love!

Incidentally, Teal told me about this and I wasted no time in grabbing an opportunity to put this up on my blog.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. Arun, muahahahaha!

Gimme a break! Will You?

I have had it enough with people giving out comments like this. I cannot really comment on whether taking a girl/guy out for a date is right or wrong. But then, I am only saying that comments like the above seem so stupid to me.

If XYZ says dating girls/guys is wrong, does that mean something is wrong with XYZ?

Did your dad date a girl? If he didn’t, do you agree that something is wrong with him?

Did your brother date a girl? If he didn’t, do you agree that something is wrong with him?

Did your mom date a guy? If she didn’t, do you agree that something is wrong with her?

This post isn’t targeting Sathya in any way. I am just speaking generically. Change your stance.

If someone’s belief is unsuitable for you, ignore it. Don’t question it or try to disprove it or derogate the person. It just makes no sense.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. Arun has bashed me in a post here. It is to be noted that this is the second post bashing me (on another blog).

Me is back!

We had gone on a trip to Thiruchaanoor yesterday. My family and my Chittappaa’s family left my place yesterday early morning and came back yesterday night itself. I am planning to try out a small travelogue, better than my previous one. I’ll come up with it sometime and put up a link on the ‘experiments’ page.

I missed the Indiblogger Chennai meetup yesterday. Sathya, however, seems to have enjoyed it a lot and has even met a lot of new people. He has a post on it here.
Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I got hold of first show tickets for Dasavathaaram and I’m thrilled now! waiting for Friday!

Random Thoughts: LVS’ blog

LVS has been quite a friend and I’ve been reading all his blog posts for a long time. I have noted two facts for a long time and somehow I couldn’t post on it till now. So, here it is.

Fact 1: There are always more females commenting on his posts than males. This might imply that he has more female friends than male friends. But then, I don’t want to specifically state anything here.

Fact 2: There were times when there were more female scraps on each page in his scrapbook*.

I am not saying that having more friends of the opposite gender is wrong. I’m just saying that for a fellow like LVS, who usually tries to act girl shy, this is a sort of a startling revelation to the outside world!

Great work LVS!

Keep it going!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. This marks a special trend where I start the post with a link. I’m also planning to sign off with a HTML signature instead of my handle . I know! I know! Sounds too hi-fi!

*A special thanks to Aditya for enlightening me with this fact by giving me details and analysis that even Google Analytics would not be able to.

Just Coffee?!

I am sure all of you/us would have given a thought about a perfect soul-mate. It’s perfectly normal to do so. [No tealie! This ain't a post targeting you!]

The process of matrimony, like any other domestic process, has also become computerized (to an extent) now although the commitment called Life still hasn’t!

OK! OK! I’ll cut down on the abstractness!

There are popular matrimony sites like BharatMatrimony, SimplyMarry, Shaadi and all. The thing with these sites is that one needs to register for an account, has to give all account details including a photo and has to scavenge for other accounts based on tags such as caste, religion, language etc.

[I know it sounds a lot similar to what people do on Orkut! oh! PSP! We could use more gyan here!]

The problem with such services is that all your profile details are pretty much vulnerable to the outside world. I’m sure anyone would feel insecure giving out personal details on the Internet to find a life partner. There is a chance that such details are misused.

I had just come across this site called SirfCoffee. It’s a very interesting idea. All you have to do is register just like on any other site. The advantage here is that you don’t have a ‘public’ profile like in other services. Instead, the service provider maintains your profile privately and handpicks people who might suit you by carefully reading through your profile. This way your privacy is also maintained and the chances of you getting a perfect-match are more. It doesn’t stop there. The service provider also arranges for a coffee date between the two people. But, you have to take it from there on.

I liked the idea instantly. But then, this cannot be scaled up to a large extent as it wouldn’t be possible to hand-process applications beyond a certain number of applicants. You can find more details on the service including a good explanation of the various phases of the service on the website.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I didn’t go searching for my soul-mate. Vijay just tweeted the URL and I casually visited thinking it was another version of the Open Coffee Club.

iConned

There’s this guy called Sathyanarain who’s working for findnearyou.com . Incidentally, he’s so vetti that I’ve been chatting with him during most of his work time! That said, he’s taken sometime to put up a post bashing me up on his blog. You can find it here. I found it very enjoyable. Hope you do so as well!
Yours Skeptically,
uleadin
P.S. dei sathya, I’m giving a huge amount of traffic to your site da. So, watch it. Hope your server can handle that much

Afforestation and Concentration

We had the second meetup of the Society for Intellectual Thinking today at the same location, the Marina Beach near Gandhi statue. We had a turnout of 8 people. More can be found on the SIT blog. We were half way through the brainstorming session when one lad in kurta-dhoti came to us and asked us what we were doing.

We, being pretty unclear about what to do, errupted in laughter, much to the discomfort of that lad!

He then told us that he (along with some friends) was trying to organize a signature campaign to ask the Government to plant more trees and so on. He also asked if we would sign. We, being the cheerful and noble guys, decided to oblige and sign.

Once we were done signing, the lad opened up the long piece of vinyl to reveal a poster that must’ve been specifically designed to cause vision problems. The briliant usage of colours just confirmed this fact. It was to promote some event which involved some dance, games and stuff. Apart from this, they were also gonna plant some 1 Lakh trees in and around Chennai. Their marketing was clearly mis-oriented!

The lad asked “are yawl OK with this?”

Srinath said “I’m OK with the trees……but not the dance and music”

Again we all errupted in laughter. Anyone would, given the situation and Srinath’s briliant timing.

The lad clearly couldn’t handle all of us. He decided to introduce one more guy and walk away. This second guy was a 2007 passout from Banaras Hindu University. Incidentally, the Central Govt has given an IIT status to this university this year only. This guy conveniently put it to use and claimed to be from an IIT. I didn’t recognize this clever claim. Srinath and Vijay, however, did.

The lad went on and on about how you need focus in life and how you can reach much much greater heights if you have focus and concentration. Then he moved to the importance of control over emotions. Then about developing good tolerance. I simply didn’t and don’t realize what planting trees had/has to do with concentration, focus, control over emotions and improved tolerance!

Their mode of presentation was totally hopeless and none of us understood anything. If you’ve decided to do two disjoint things, claim that there are two things that you need to tell the listener.
Or, don’t try to make a single approach to market both.

They intended to tell me that the theme of the event was planting trees and that there were courses conducted by experts on concentration, focus, control over emotions and tolerance. The whole thing was sponsored/organized by ‘The Art of Living’ Foundation. In all, they wasted their time talking to 8 people and got nothing across clearly. It’s a waste of time for both parties.

Yours Skepticaly,

uleadin

P.S. The females in the group were decent looking and hence we managed to stay there and listen to their crap. Otherwise, walk off only!!! Moral – If your cause is weak/dumb, have some gorgeous babes in your group. It works most of the time with guy-target-audiences.

The Rowdie Chronicles

We, the rowdie gang, met up at Navneeth’s house at around 6 30 PM on May 29th 2008. The purpose was Raja-Sundar joint birthday treat and PSP leaving to Mangalore for MphasiS training.

Raja was the first to reach Navneeth’s place, I guess.

[Somehow always Raja and Navneeth end up being together most of the time. No! I don't mean to imply anything here. Just thought of the coincidence ]

I called up Raja from Adyar depot and he came down to pick me up. We vrooomed to Navneeth’s house in Navneeth’s Scooty

Navneeth’s parents had got a new Tata Sky connection that morning only. Before you jump to conclusions, this was purely a reward to Navneeth’s bro Nithin who did well in his 12th boards. Navneeth is only a beneficiary of his bro’s achievement

Raja, Navneeth and I were watching some old cricket matches on Star Cricket. Meanwhile, Sundar had arrived at Thiruvanmiyur Bus Depot and, unfortunately, Arun couldn’t pick him up. Raja had to drive down to pick up Sundar as well. But then, given the fact that Raja doesn’t do any work normally, this was more of a compensation and nobody was prepared to pity him!

Finally, Sudhir and Rafi arrived (individually) and we were waiting for Arun. There were about 30 minutes for Arun to come and we walked down to Bessie Beach to eat some Bajji. It is to be noted that Navneeth lives about 100 meters from the beach on a perpendicular road which houses CCD and a few other joints as well. Hence, We had, conveniently, appointed Navneeth as the sponsor for the Beach Bajji. Not jus this once. He has always been buying us Beach Bajji all the time!

Arun finally arrived and we headed straight into Navneeth’s place again. We had planned a surprise farewell cake for PSP. It can’t be called a surprise actually (me, sundar and arun mentioned it when PSP was there itself. he was dumb enough not to notice it!). We had asked the bakery to write “Miss u, PSP Esh*, ~RG~” on the top of the cake. Then, we had fun with the cake, put the cream on each others’ faces. Then came the best part. We made PSP eat the single piece of cake which had PSP Esh* written on it. Arun even took a snap of it but is yet to make it available online. Although we had generously reserved a couple of pieces of he cake for Navneeth’s bro and dad, nothing was left in the end. Can’t blame anyone. The mood of the party I guess.

Finally, we realized it was getting late and headed to Eden, in Besant Nagar. Much to our awe, Eden was not full at all! At 7 55 PM IST, one of the best family restaurants in Besant Nagar had space for an 8-people-group! You won’t find this surprising until you go down to that place. It’s very small.

We had a great time mocking everyone from the waiter to Manmohan Singh to Gopinath (Leaf King). The food, however, disappeared as soon as it came. We took a lot of pictures in weird poses. I’m waiting for Arun to put them up on Flickr.

Finally, the time came and we had to leave. I rushed with Arun to Thiruvanmiyur Bus Depot. I was lucky to catch the last bus that left the depot towards my area! I reached home around 10 45 PM IST.

We all missed Naveen that night. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I forgot to urge the crowd into taking the Ubuntu pose photo. Dammit!

Rowdie Gang!

There is this gang of phellows from my batch called the Rowdie Gang. It consists of a bunch of elite folks from my batch, predominantly from Computer Science Engineering. Of course, there are very few members from other branches as well. The names of these elite individuals (apart from myself) are mentioned here, in no specific order.

Raja Deepak a.k.a. g**b*s a.k.a c*r*h*n

Naveen a.k.a sethji a.k.a r*s**i

Sundar a.k.a wiyoats a.k.a [ahem....let's forget it, shall we?]

Navneeth a.k.a thala a.k.a a**u

Arun a.k.a s*a**y

Praveen a.k.a 2GB a.k.a e**a

Rafi a.k.a ka**a k*d**ran

Sudhir a.k.a [I dunno what he's also known as]
I should say we had the best time of our lives together. All the folks except Praveen and Sudhir belong to CS and hence were almost together all the time. College is over and Praveen is going down to Mangalore to get trained to work at the-then-EDS-owned and now-HP-owned MPhasis.

I know! I know! How lucky you must be to get placed in a company like MPhasis and end up working for HP ?!

We just met up at Navneeth’s house today and ate out and had a nice time overall. I’ll write a nice long post on the day that was May 29th 2008. But for now, I need to sleep. Gotta wake up early and go down to college to pick up a few marksheets.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. PSP, we’re gonna miss you down here da!

Controversy: Tolerant Brahmins

I was casually watching TV today morning while reading the Times of India. There was this song from the movie “Thiruttu Payale” from Tamil, directed by Susee Ganesan. I’ve seen this film and liked the moral behind the story. I have always felt that one fact has been very objectionable.

There’s this song in which Sonia Aggarwal and Jeevan have been picturized as Sri Narayana and Thayaar. I am an Iyengar and I found this fact very very objectionable. It is not right to let the lead couple wear some disguise that looks like one divine figure worshipped by many. Also, the pervert that Jeevan is and the call-girl that Sonia Aggarwal is, Both of them carry no stature to be portrayed as a form of God. I am not a staunch God man but then that doesn’t mean I cannot say this is wrong. Brahmins do not really care about all this. Our tolerance levels are too high and I hope that fact changes soon.

I am sure that the same Susee Ganesan wouldn’t dare picturize the lead couple as Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene! Why? Because Christians would indulge in a riot itself! Brahmins don’t care about movies and Susee Ganesan.

Frankly, the Hindu Munnani, which protests over the poor picturization of Iyers in Dasavathaaram, should’ve found this objectionable as well. Why didn’t they think so? Because it was not about Iyers, It was about Iyengars. This brings me to the next fact, Iyers and Iyengars do not stand together in an issue like this. In any case, Iyers and/or Iyengars should’ve even indulged in stone pelting at Susee Ganesan’s house and office for his mistake in portrayal!

I have wanted to write on this even before I started this blog. However, I could do it only now.

Yours Skeptically,
uleadin

P.S. I also realized that Susee Ganesan was from Mani Ratnam’s stable. Not that it has anything to do with this. Just curious.

CSK Vs JA

If you thought this was something about IPL, you’re right. If you thought there was no team called JA in the IPL, you’re right again!

There was this match some 3 days ago where the Chennai Super Kings lost to the Rajasthan Royals, not by a royal margin but by a paltry margin of 10 runs. Both me and my dad are pretty much cricket lovers and the IPL had us glued to the TV ever since it started on April 18th. Coming back to the match that happened some 3 days ago. This was the day when I heard that Jeffery Archer was coming down to LandMark to launch a book he wrote. My dad is a medium-level fan of JA and was thinking of dragging me along to LandMark to listen to him talk. I, however, wasn’t very decisive about going.

I wasn’t a great fan of JA but wanted to meet him for the personality that he was. But then, the CSK match was also pulling me near the TV. I was clearly in a dilemma. Finally, my dad decided that we would watch the match instead of listening to JA and that we could see the JA-LandMark videos on youtube the next morning or something.

The CSK lost the match by 10 runs. I agree it was a tough fight, but then I still feel we should’ve gone to meet JA. This fact has been re-inforced by an article in The Chennai Times about the event. A lot of celebrities had graced the occasion apart from JA (him being the super celeb) namely Shriya Saran ( ), Vijay Amritraj, Ramkumar* etc.

Now, I strongly feel we should’ve gone to meet JA instead of sitting and watching CSK lose. Anyway, nothing can be done now. Next time, cricket won’t get my vote when it comes to a dilemma.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. For those of you who wonder what a medium-level fan is, (in this case) It’s being something above just a reader of an author and just short of a fan who buys all books, merchendise and chants the author’s name while sleeping.

* Yes! This is the guy who said “Repeatu” in the opening song in Chandramukhi and was the producer of that movie as well. Unfortunately, he’s actor Prabhu’s brother and veteran actor Sivaji’s son as well.

MNM Jain! Not again!

We have this apartment off North Usman Road. Our family plans to give it out for rent and we’ve been getting a few bids here and there. I was on a mad rush to go down to Landmark to evenly share the Gift Voucher (we got) with my dad. Just then, someone called my dad and asked to see the apartment. We went to our apartment and waited for about 30 minutes. We got impatient and planned to leave. Just then, they walked in. Good timing!

They’re a family of four. One man, his wife, son and daughter-in-law. They looked around the house and liked it very much. We then spoke to them about what they were doing w.r.t career and also regarding their native and so on.

Then came the shock of my life. The daughter-in-law was a 2004 passout from ECE from MNM Jain! “God, is this a recurring curse that thou has bestowed upon me? Oh! Please! Anything but this!” I thought.

She then questioned me about the college and how I got placed whilst in college and Jeyasingh and Pattabiraman and so on. I also suppose that they have this ideology wherein bespectacled guys have been forced to wear spectacles because they study a lot. They assumed I was some boy genius.

[ I know this is, sometimes, a clever attempt to cover the landlord/owner/employer and so on. My dad was not interested in all of this. I'm always OK with praise and I kept smiling and enjoying it ]

Then we spoke to them about the terms and conditions and they were OK with everything. We like the family as such. End of story.

In another separate incident, (months ago), I met this person called Sampath Srinivasa Rangan on Orkut. He’s working for JWT and I just spoke to him about working on an internship. Again I was in for a shock. His elder son passed out in 2005 from EEE from MNM Jain!

I’m done with college now and I’m trying to move on to the next phase of life and forget those bad memories of college. Life tries to re-iterate memories every once-in-a-while even against one’s will I guess.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I don’t know where the next MNM Jain connection is going to pop up. I’ll post on any such instances in the future.

a steady headstart

I jointly started the Society for Intellectual Thinking (along with Srinath). We had decided to have our first meetup yesterday and we had it as per schedule. There was not much of a presence but there were enough people present for a good discussion. Myself, Srinath, Ravi, Rajaram, Teal and LVS were there.

We finally started off at around 6 30 and concluded a little past 8. The transcripts of the discussions can be found on the SIT blog. There might be a few photos as well.

We’ve preponed the June 8th meetup to next sunday (June 1st) due to the fact that a lot of us won’t be available on June 8th. It was a good session yesterday. I was the only guy known to all. Teal and LVS met Srinath, Ravi and Rajaram for the first time and vice versa.

Most of us hadn’t gone through something like this earlier. Srinath attends the Gandhi Study Circle regularly. To him, this might not be new. In all, yesterday was a nice experience for all of us. Hope to see a lot of new faces next week.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. We also plan to do some podcasting from next week. Let’s see.

P.P.S. The venue is definitely going to be the Marina Beach (near Gandhi Statue) from now on. We all liked the ambience there. The time is subject to some change though.

There it goes!

I was quite happy that my computer was running pretty fine for a long time. There was literally no noticeable problem! No crashes, no viruses, no partitions missing, nothing! One fine morning, I wake up early and download all that I can till the 8 AM IST free-download-time set by BSNL.

I go to sleep at 8 only to be woken up by my dad 30 minutes later. He tells me that the computer isn’t ‘working’. To him, ‘not-working’ means only one thing. To me, it always means a dozen things. Even a small tilt of the power plug can mean ‘not-working’ for him. I was hoping that it was one of those petty problems so that I can pretend that there’s something gravely wrong with the computer and claim to have ‘repaired’ it.

[Well, that's how I impress the people most of the time]

This time, however, it wasn’t that simple! Windows refused to boot! I had downloaded movies and everything some 30 mins back and it seemed fine.

30 mins later, pop! there it goes! Now, I need to find a Windows XP CD and try to reinstall it.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. Luckily I have Linux! Special thanks to this guy for that!

Y-U-C-K!

I am sure most of you wouldn’t be in a comfortable position if you had to co-exist with reptiles in your house. I’m not comfortable as well. In addition to this already-existing discomfort, a recent incident has pushed the tolerance levels further down to an all-time low! I just thought I’ll write about it here. Being the noble guy that I am, I don’t want such an incident happening to any of you.

I was searching for this book called ”Made in Japan”. It’s about Akio Morita, the founder of Sony. I couldn’t find it in my living room. I had to go into my bedroom to retrieve it. There was no light switched on in that bedroom. I, unsuspectingly, switched on the tubelight and as usual would take ages to light up. I took a couple of steps forward and felt something unusual rubbing against my right foot thumb. I just nudged it a bit thinking it was some random thing inside the room. Suddenly, the light went on and I saw a lizard running across the room from my direction to that opposite of me. I was shell shocked! I ran into the bathroom and washed my feet and hands with any kind of cleaning liquid that was inside (except the cleaning acid types). Man! It was a terrible experience!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. If at all you feel something strange next to your feet, don’t ever nudge it!

You’re a marketing expert!

Yes! I mean it! Most of us don’t know the fact that there are a lot of complex management activities in our day-to-day life itself. This is partly due to a lot of us not being aware of the flashy management jargon. We don’t know clearly as to what marketing/sales could mean and therefore, we don’t know we’re good at it. I ask you to give a deep thought into the things mentioned below. I thought of these things while I had to put on my eye drops and ’sleep’ down on the floor in my living room.

1) You market yourself a lot when you want something from your mom or dad, especially when you’ve done nothing great but are ‘going to’ do something swashbuckling!

2) When you wave out in a cricket stadium, you try to do something more unique than the guy next to you so that the cameras notice you and you become instantly famous. Although the fame lasts for not more than a minute, you get the thrill and that seems to be worth the effort.

3) You go down to your teacher and ask for more marks. I agree that in a lot of the cases, or in fact in most cases, there is little marketing. But, I know a few people who get marks because they market themselves well (especially a few females whose names I can’t mention here).

4) This is not a very compelling form of marketing. But, you do sell yourself when you even try for employment. Ask Arun, Sundar or myself. We’ve got our own stories to tell about the Infosys personal interview.

There could be more scenarios that didn’t come to my mind while writing this post. If I can get hold of some more exemplary scenarios, I’ll update this post or write a new post.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. If you have noticed a few scenarios, do tell me in the comments section.

aaaaargh!

I have been having this small disorder for the last 2 or 3 days. Suddenly one night my left eye started irritating and, me being the easily-pissed-off types, I fought with my eye and tried to dig out the dirt. The irritation stopped for some 30 mins and came back mildly again. I didn’t let it bother me and slept off. The next morning, I wasn’t able to open my left eye easily. It was that afternoon that I realized that my left eye was almost perennially red! I thought it was some infection and asked my mom for some cure. Both my parents brushed aside my allegations of it being some infection and said it was due to the heat.

But, now, It’s confirmed. I have Madras Eye. I’m gonna have to stay indoors for a few days and take eye drops as medication. In this regard, there are a few more sad things that are bothering me more than the Madras Eye.

1) I can’t go to ‘Iron Man’ with Srinath tonight.

2) I can’t go down to Landmark and scavenge on ways to spend my 750 bucks worth gift voucher this weekend.

3) I will, most probably, have to postpone the first meeting of the SIT.

4) I can’t play cricket with the guys here for another 2 days at-least!

5) I have to sit and watch TV with my eyes closed, at times!

6) My parents won’t let me sit on the computer for hours together!

Damn this Madras Eye! People tell me that this is not the ’season’ for Madras Eye (as if it’s some exotic fruit delicacy! damn!).

So, there it is. I’ve got an out-of-season eye infection now!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I’ve got something that’s not available in this season. Is that great, by any chance?

4 year symposium

I had gone to college today and met Arun there. He had somehow collected my Course Completion Certificate from the college and was waiting to give it to me before he left. I took a moment to look at it. It looks a little worse than a typical Anna-University-affiliated-college technical symposium participation certificate. It has some out-of-fashion text and worse than that, it’s written and given on request. If I go and ask for my name they’ll write my name and branch and give it off. If I go after 2 days, I can get one more and after 2 days, one more and so on!

The bottom line is that the college has tried to watermark it’s name in about font size 8-9 about 50 times within one A4 sheet itself! Man! They could’ve tried one large watermark that says the abbreviations alone! In fact, people are even telling me that the watermark isn’t actually made on the sheet but is printed with the text! That’s sick! Hope it ain’t that way!

In any case, the college has certified that I have completed a 4 year mammoth course by giving me a sub standard symposium participation certificate!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I don’t mean to say my college sucks. If you happen to interpret it that way, you’re welcome! That’s not wrong either!

Then and Now,

I was just thinking of a few random things while taking bath today morning and the idea for this post came to my mind. I had a lot of misconceptions while I was in school. All of them have been rectified by the experiences of college life. I just thought I’ll write on a few weird ones here.

Then: Any female with fair complexion is considered hot.

Now: There’s a lot more than that!

 

Then: An invite came from some University of Phoenix in the US of A. I was proud that some American university had invited me to join some course.

Now: Not even the worst of dunces would go there.

 

Then: I was proud that the opening page of MSN said “welcome, Prashanth” I was  like “They recognize me! I must be great”

Now: It’s only because of a stupid cookie!

 

Then: Getting a job in an IT company in India requires one to be of exceptional academic background and possess extra-ordinary skills of negotiation and technical prowess.

Now: Most of that is bullshit! I’m placed and I have none of these!

 

Then: All fellows who go to IITM are absolute geeks and think of nothing but research and academics.

Now: Aaha! Tiffany’s and Cafe Coffee Day! So that’s where most people went!

 

Many more to come in this list.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I’ll update this post when something pops up appropriately. So keep checking back this post if you want to see more of these.

IT’s over!

We buy three newspapers at home everyday and a few more on Sundays alone. Out of the regulars is The Economic Times. I was prompted to read an article on the IT sector in India by my dad and it has proved to be quite an eye opener. You can read it here. It presents a slightly shocking picture. IT majors have stepped down the aggression with respect to recruitments. It is expected that campus recruitment can go down by as much as 15-20% from current levels. This is generally attributed to two main factors, the hike in value of the Rupee and the Sub-Prime economic breakdown in the US.

The hike in the value of the Rupee is due to several reasons. Exports in all sectors (actually, most of the important sectors) from India have gone up in this FY. Of course, it is also attributed to the weak economic situation in the US that is pulling the value of the Dollar down.

The Sub Prime breakdown is a very interesting one. The story starts with the September 11 attacks and the IT recession in the US then. The Government had no way to improve the economy because everyone was apprehensive about spending every dime from the pocket. It’s pretty obvious that only a positive cash flow can improve an economy. So, the Government decided to do something that it considered ingenious then. Now, however, it’s feeling the pinch. ‘Prime’ is generally something with paramount importance and quality. Sub-Prime is something that is not of paramount quality. Hence, ‘Prime’ loans are loans given to people with good financial soundness. Sub-Prime loans are loans given to people without proper collateral and repayment capabilities. The Government decided to give loans to all kinds of people from all facets of society to encourage them to shop and spend and thereby improve the economic situation of the country by creating a positive cash flow all round. This was where the Government got carried away and even instructed private banks to give loans to every Tom, Dick and Harry around! The problem here, again, is that the private banks in turn borrowed from top banks from all over the World (for loans that might never be repaid). Banks like ICICI had to write off a part of this money in their results QoQ. All this made sure that the Dollar doesn’t go up in value at all. The Government of US has to find a suitable way/ways to plug the loans and re-direct the US from it’s path towards economic insolvency.

As a direct result of these factors, the margin of profit for the IT majors has gone down. They wouldn’t increase their bill to the clients because of the fear that the contract might get shifted to other alternate firms from growing markets all over Asia. Thinner margins, lower reserves, high employee base. This is something that no company would love to encounter.

If you’re planning to look at IT in India as a career option, I strongly advice you to keep yourself up-to-date with trends in IT and remain competitive and aggressive throughout your career. Otherwise, chances are that you might get chucked out at any time.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I would say that the healthy lifetime of the Indian IT industry would be another 5-8 years maximum after which it’s certain downslide would begin.

random thoughts: ramses the second

I have been having this way of spending idle time on either stumbleupon or on wikipedia. The time spent on the former is still the same though the time spent on the latter has reduced in recent times. Yesterday, I was just reading through some random articles on wikipedia. One of them was about the Egyptian Pharoah Ramses II (his actual name was Ramesses I guess and it got alternatively transcribed as Ramses in Greek literature). He is believed to be Egyptian history’s most powerful and prolific ruler. He was a great builder and a celebrated warrior. Egyptian literature boasts elaborately of his splendid imaginative architectural skills and the unprecedented courage and confidence he had at war. Incidentally, He is believed to have ‘many’ wives (I wasn’t able to get an exact number anywhere online). He is also believed to have fathered about 100 to 200 children. Also, Egyptian literature half-heartedly confirms that he lived for not more than 90 years. What an incredible rate of reproduction? I know!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. The Ramses brand of condoms is believed to have been named after this great Pharaoh!

the gen next idea

I have this habit of talking to my dad about something or the other at nights. Not a very long conversation, not more than an hour. It was during one of these conversations that he was telling me how his friends’ children thought their generation was competent and their previous (my dad’s generation) was terribly incompetent. He said that most kids my age thought high of themselves and low of their parents in the career and competence sense of it. The fact is that these people rarely realize the importance of a factor called ‘growth rate’. When one has decided to make a comparison with the past, one has to look at the opportunities that prevailed then and those that prevail today. There will always be a clear difference in this factor. I have to agree that this factor is conveniently neglected to blow achievements and accolades out of proportion. Also, the ego that people have these days has simply shielded them from looking at a factor as important as this. It’s not right to look at the bottom line and decide in these kinds of issues. This is not like writing a book review or a gadget review. It’s an issue of performance of an individual and I personally think that it deserves a deeper look into it. I don’t know how I came to this stand but I don’t intend to change it. So, all you ‘Gen Next’ fellows, please don’t think you’ve moved mountains. These days mountains come with roller skates making it easier for you whereas for your dad they came double riveted to the ground.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. My Infosys job, itself, is supposed to pay me more than what my dad got at 40. This doesn’t mean he’s an incompetent dunce and I’m a genius! Never! Never ever!

The ambitions of the uleadin!

Looking back into the past, I realized that there were so many professions I wanted to take up. I was thinking of all that today morning and decided that I write on some significant dream careers I had in mind.

PhD:

This was a career that I was looking at before passing first standard. My dad always wanted to do a PhD but couldn’t because of many reasons that I don’t want to mention here. He wanted to realize his dream with my help and brain washed me to take up a PhD. Of course, neither of us were serious about it. He knew it too!

Chartered Accountant:

This career option was largely inspired by my uncles. Three of my four (maternal) uncles are Chartered Accountants. Srinath is also aspiring to become one because his father (my eldest maternal uncle) is a CA. This was partly due to my mother’s brainwashing also. She must’ve wanted her son to stick to the family lineage.

Teacher:

This was one of my own ideas. I once wondered how wonderful it would be to bash all the kids around you and be the big boss. Later did I realize that my teacher dreams were for this and not for my passion for teaching!

Pilot:

This dream was inspired by my fraternal uncle (chittappa) who wanted me to fly high for some reason I still don’t know. However, he did not brainwash me and this dream quickly escaped from my thoughts.

Professional Keyboard Player/ Music Director:

This was a mad dream I had while learning to play on the Keyboard. I know it’s very funny but then I was in class 5 or 6 then. So, I had no idea as to how difficult it was to become a Music Director. The dream vanished pretty soon (before Class 7). But the passion for Keyboard playing stayed on till class 10.

Central Excise/Income Tax Department of the Union Government:

This was a result of me watching all those tamil films which show nothing but corruption in Govt offices. I was astonished at how rapidly people made a fortune to do the jobs they were already paid to do! I was prepared to take bribes and live a King’s life. This greatly upset my dad as he had thought he had brought me up with a lot of ethics injected into my mind. He did do that! I was the one who went mad for money. Later I realized how wrong I was about taking a bribe.

Web Designer:

This was another ambitious career I wanted to take up. I was starting to learn HTML and other markup languages whilst in class 11. I was thrilled by the whole idea that I could design web pages and all. Now I can very much realize that it is not so difficult, but at that time I thought it was super cool!

Software Engineer:

This was the time I had to study Visual Basic in class 12 and VB fascinated me a lot. For the first time, I was creating applications that were running on windows. My Software! I thought it would be super enjoyable to do this forever. This was one of my longest ambitions and I had it till I entered 4th semester in college.

Equity Analyst:

This was a result of me beginning to follow the SENSEX and NIFTY. I was really excited that I could make a fortune sitting at home by buying the right stock and selling it at the right time. I wondered if I could do this forever. Moreover, I came to know from my dad that I could do this for someone else as well and make more money if I became an Equity Analyst. Somehow, this ambition didn’t stay for long too.

Event Manager:

I was involved with culturals in college and this made me think if there was a lucrative career in Event Management. It was only later that I realized that there were too many other things wr.t Event Management. Moreover, I couldn’t find any internship opportunities in Event Management. This made me half-heartedly forsake Event Management as a career.

The fact is that this list is not exhaustive. I am stopping it here so that this doesn’t become too long a post for you guys to read! There are a lot more ambitions that uleadin has/had in mind.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. Sundar, I’m looking for some innovative comments from you this time.

IPL = Indian Pervert’s League?

There has been the controversy about the cheerleaders in the IPL who have dressed in an exemplary manner. We need to appreciate the lack of self consciousness in them! I am told that unlike in India and other third World countries, the flesh show exhibited by these ‘cheerleaders’ isn’t due to their family’s poor financial status. They are well off in most cases. Why this uncouth way of making money then? I don’t understand too!

Next, I want to find out as to why there’s so much hue and cry over one’s dressing rights and the rights being stripped off the cheerleader females. I think they’re being stripped of something else, not the rights. For all of you who think it’s one’s right to dress in whatever way one wants to, try running nude on the road one day. It’s most likely that you’ll be arrested by cops for public nuisance. For heaven’s sake, this is not a violation of one’s right to dressing!

It’s about obscenity alright. But about obscenity in the wrong context! It is a cricket match series. Why is there a flesh show on the side? What is the purpose that the spectators are sitting in the stadium? Is it for the match or for the flesh show? If it’s for the match, they can do without the flesh show! If it’s for the flesh show, they can find exclusive places for that purpose outside the city. They don’t need to be searching for that in a cricket stadium!

I also do not agree that citing Khajuraho temples as an example and trying to get away is right! Khajuraho temples were built for that exclusive purpose of the sexual elements of the religions of Hinduism and Jaininsm. They were not places built in the middle of a family entertainment park or a family restaurant or a family shopping mall!

They were meant to be watched by adults to learn the various facets of sex life! Even today, when one goes to Khajuraho, there will be moral police waiting to say that it’s not advisable for children. I can assure you that. But beyond that, if you’re determined to explain the facets of sex life to your three year old kid, nobody can do anything! I’m only saying that cheerleaders are being placed in the wrong environment for their flesh show! A cricket stadium is not the place for flesh show!

If you go on saying that all this is part of the cultural shift, accept a few other things also. Then I won’t find anything objectionable in cheerleader costumes. Accept love marriage, inter-caste marriage, sex before marriage, living together, public kissing, same-sex marriage and the like. I’ll shut my mouth and won’t say anything about cheerleader costumes!

If you’re trying to adopt western culture, it’s always welcomed! But do it in totality! Don’t take the parts you want and conveniently avoid the rest! Be Black or White, Don’t try to be Grey!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. Don’t make the IPL, the Indian Perverts’ League instead of Indian Premier League.

Change is Here – Part Two

I had done a small write-up on people who had influenced me, my attitude and my career. This is just a follow up to that. There were a few more people who deserved a mention but didn’t strike me at that time. So, here goes.

Sathyanarain:

Sathya has been known to me for a long time from the good ol’ Rapture days but not beyond a “hi-hello” rapport. Recently we came to know each other quite well and I realized what like-minded fellows we were! We almost think alike, act alike. We even decided to get together and have a start-up to gain some exposure! But then, all that put aside, Sathya is a great humane worth knowing in all senses. Very humble as well. Somehow, he never gives in to allegations of him being in love with a certain fair-skinned female from my college.

Raja Marthandan:

Raja, again, has been known to me for not more than 2 months. But the rapport I share with him is like that of knowing him for ages. The fact is that he’s pretty humble and jovial for the position he occupies. He’s the Head of Corporate Communications for Southern India for Adlabs’ BIG FM. He’ll look as if he’s straight out of college but he’s been in Public Relations for over 4 years! I went and spoke to him about public relations as a career but he ended up giving me a clear perspective of advertizing and journalism as well! All that over a coffee table at his office! Not only that, even after that episode he’s managed to stay in touch and listen to all my ramblings! I help him out with his internet marketing/PR in whatever little amounts I can whenever possible. Great guy to know!

My Gang in College:

I do have to attribute a good deal of my college life fun to this gang of people consisting of Raja Deepak, Sundar, Navneeth, Navneeth, Rafi and Praveen. Be it the time we sit in the stone benches to gaze at passing females or the time we sit together and play hangman in class or the time we do other unmentionable things in college, There has never been a dull moment with these guys around. A Special mention has to go to Nithin for making the long bus journey interesting throughout the last year. A special mention also has to go to my Dept staff for giving me that extra bit of liberty in running around the department and not attending class at all. I doubt I would’ve gotten this privilege had I studied in some other reputed college.

Pavithra:

I’ve known this female for not more than 3 months. The only common topic with her was my MBA, I thought. But I was in for a surprise. There was a lot more to her than I thought! A very versatile personality. I can remember the times when we sat together to choose which course she should take up and which institute. Loads of fun! A well read, well behaved person. Many thanks to Kalaivani for referring me to Pavithra!

That’s about it I guess. I don’t think there’s anyone I left. If I remember someone I left out, a new post will feature them.

The story of the uleadin

There have been a lot of people who have questioned me as to why something as meaningless and wierd as uleadin was chosen to be associated with me. There have been innumerable instances when uleadin would not be read as you-lead-in but as ulleaahdeen giving me a lot of discomfort. People would instanty feel that I was,apparently, obsessed with 5th century arabian names!

Frankly, this has happened too too too many times. I decided to write a post on the origin of uleadin and how it became my handle on the Internet and that it has nothing to do with 5th century Arabia!

There was a time when I had a dialup connection (ok, I had it till last year, so what? ) and I was studying in school. Back then, if you googled your name/handle and got results within the first page you were considered super cool. I googled my name and got a million results and nothing relating to me was within the first 15 pages. I didn’t waste time on looking beyond 15 pages. I decided I wanted a handle. Somehow, I came about choosing prazmataz as my handle then. I can understand it is supremely pathetic and that’s why I decided to change it a year later.  I was in 10th when I was tired of this prazmataz thing. I read a review about some ulead photo studio thingie. I knew ulead wouldn’t be available for sure. I tried uleadin and it clicked. I signed up for uleadin [at] yahoo [dot] com. That was the first time I used uleadin as my handle.

I was happy that it was more unique than prazmataz then as it returned no english results on google. That did it. From then on, I have used uleadin in each and every login option available. All my logins are uleadin till date.

The fact that my name returned a lot of irrelevant results and that uleadin returned no english results was the prime reason that made me choose uleadin as my handle and made me move from using my name everywhere to using my handle everywhere. I would also recommend that all of you use a handle as it makes your internet identity more unique.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

This is what I call perfection!

I have been a die-hard fan of Kamal Haasan and his movies for as long as 10-12 years now. Everyone would agree that there is no actor in India (atleast) who puts in this kind of effort and dedication in his movies. Although Vijay and Ajith fans would argue that their heroes also put in an equal amount of effort into their movies, deep inside their hears they would still know that Vijay, Ajith or anyone else, for that matter, can’t even come close to Kamal’s perfection.

I saw these stills from Dasavathaaram on Behindwoods and was astonished at one fact in one particular still. The still is given here with the fact highlighted.

There is a custom among staunch Iyengars that one is supposed to have 12 Thirumans or naamams on one’s body. This fact is conveniently neglected while depicting Iyengars in films. Given Kamal’s perfection, one can see from the image that he has perfected even this aspect of Vaishnavism! I remember that he did it in Hey Ram too. I’ve highlighted six of the visible ones. The others are not visible here.

Simply astounding amount of perfection!

Can’t wait to watch the rest of the movie!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. This does not mean I’m a casteist or anything. I just thought of this point to prove his magnitude of perfection.

Change is here

Hi folks,

I have changed a lot since I joined college. From my physical appearence to my attitude, I’ve changed quite a lot lot. I am sure it has been a direct influence of college life and the different people it presented me with. I just thought it would be apt if I put down the names of the most significant people and what they did.

Aditya S:

Adi was the first senior I knew closely in college and remains that way till today. He was the first quiz crazy person I got affiliated with in college. All the time I spent with him would account for some of the heartiest moments I had in college life. He got me introduced to a lot of things like Open Quizzes, Orkut, setting my own quiz paper etc.

Sowmiya K:

Sowmiya was and has been my only consistent open quiz partner. She has become more than just a friend now. Sowmiya was (and is) like a mirror. She has remained a constant observer of all my activities. She has known and knows everything that has ever happened to me whatever be the magnitude of the incident. She has sort of filled that gap of not having grown up with an elder sister in my life. I would attribute a lot of decisions in my life to her encouragement and support.

Aishwarya S:

Ash is again a senior who I started talking to (much) after she passed out of college. She has always stood by me and has helped me with all kinds of things. Even today, if I’m unable to decide on something I ask Ash for help! Ash has this brilliant quality of cheering me up in no time even if I’m down in the dungeons! There have been countless number of occasions where she has done that and I am pretty much grateful to her for that (apart from a lot of other things). Ash still owes me a big gift though! I’m confident she’ll give it to me after reading this post atleast!

Arun M:

Arun is probably the closest of friends I’ve had all my life! There has never been a moment when he’s turned me down. He has always stayed by me and has changed a lot of things in me. He was instrumental in bringing my stubbornness down big time! He has also taught me how to assess people and how to maintain a good rapport with everyone around me. He has helped me out in innumerable occasions treating all my woes as if they were his! There were even a lot of times when I’ve wished I was Arun and not myself! In fact, when we’re together we’re rarely serious about anything (unless there’s a problem either of us is/was facing)! There’s never a dull moment when he’s around.

Srinath V:

Srinath is a cousin, or maybe something even more divine. I would even call him my mentor as he has influenced me in more ways than one. He completely changed the way I look at things, especially the society and people around me. We’re the first friends that each other had in life. We do fight on a lot of things even today. But if either of us has a problem, the other would be the first to offer help. We’ve always been partners in crime be it whatever crime! I’m sure our relationship won’t change for eternity! Together we watch the most obscure tamil movies around! He watches Telugu movies also! I don’t!

LVS:

LVS = VidhyaShankar = Ragnarock! Most of you wouldn’t understand that, but I’m sure those who know of the pre-requisite incidents would understand. LVS has also been a constant source of encouragement for me. He was one of the few people I respected from his batch. He’s the Godfather for many in my college even today although they haven’t seen him face to face. How? We carry on his legacy w.r.t all departmental activities. He’s a sort of a legend I would say. Working under him is such a divine experience. I’m sure those who know him well will agree with me.

Kalaivani:

Kalaivani has helped me out a great deal in deciding and refining the career road map that I presently have in mind. I have not spoken to her while she was in college. I was surprised that she knew me all the time! I have to be very grateful to her for the help and advice she gave me during my brief prep for MBA entrance exams. I’m sure no senior would ever do this much for a junior who he/she hasn’t even met in person. She deserves a mention here for referring me to a lot of people from whom I could get valuable career guidance as well.

The TCSI Gang:

The TCSI gang comprizes Vijay, Ravi, Rajaram and Vimal. The irony here is that they’re Srinath’s college classmates and hostelmates! How I came to know them so well is another story altogether. I wanted to mention their names as a single group because the group and my affiliation with the group changed my life a lot. I didn’t come to know of them one by one and hence I cannot say who influenced me in what way. They made me look at life from a very pointful perspective. I’m still marvelled at the way they look at things in life. I’m sure they’ll remain forever as close as they are to me now.

Dad:

Finally, I’d like to mention about yet another good friend. My dad. Sometimes I wonder if other dads would behave like this with their children. My dad has given me an enormous amount of freedom which in itself is a testimony to the magnitude of trust he’s placed on me! Never has he questioned me beyond reasonable terms! Never has he radically prohibited me from doing anything! He has tried to give me anything and everything I wanted/want in Life. And, he’s succeeded in doing that I should say! He has never ever tried to impose anything on me! I’m sure I couldn’t have had a better dad!

These are the people who came to my mind immediately when I wanted to write this post. This doesn’t mean that nobody else has helped me and that nobody else is of any use to me. It is just that there are a lot lot of people around me who help me in a lot of ways. I wanted to write on those people who came to my mind when I thought of the post. No offense meant for the others. This is my line

“If you’ve helped me in some way, don’t worry. I remember you. I’ll help you when you’re in need, before you ask for it. Much before you ask for it”

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin