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!

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.

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.

Sit, Chennai!

Hey folks,

‘Sit‘, the little informal knowledge forum that I helped start, has almost completed 14 months of existence. As an initiative towards taking the next step, we would be organizing a two-session discussion-based event on the 31st of May, the upcoming Sunday. The information document is available in the page linked above. It is an invitational event and therefore is not open to the general public, as such. Let me not sound very discouraging. If you’d like an invitation, try emailing us. We’d love to consider a few people on a case-to-case basis.

Many thanks to Baidik, Paddy, Dr Annamalai, Vinay Raghu, Ashraf, Milind and Raja M for helping us out in their own ways towards making this event happen. Folks, your commitment towards Sit and towards this unconference has only motivated us to put in more efforts!

Apart from this unconference, there is something bigger brewing in the back. It’s a mind-blowing idea that we’ve come up with and I’m hoping to write on it here very soon. If all things go well, Chennai is going to see a different kind of societal service very very soon.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I’ll post pictures and videos of the event, same time next week!

P.P.S. I’ve started linking to peoples’ LinkedIn profiles a lot more than to their blogs/websites. LinkedIn addiction at an all-time high now-a-days! Aaaaargh!

Filler!

Hey folks!

I’ve been running out of ideas to blog for quite sometime now. That would explain the low updation rate of this blog. Anyway, I just managed to coin a fancy equation which we intend to use as our team name at Open Quizzes. Here it is.

For those of you who don’t know who the person in the last picture is, she is ‘annai’ Satyabama, mother of yesteryear political legend, MGR. Satyabama Deemed University, Satya Studios, Satyajyothi Films and many other institutions/charitable-trusts are/were named after her.

While googling to find these pics, I also managed to stumble upon one slightly rare pic. Here it is.

No prizes for guessing who Velupillai Prabakaran is. I’m sure you know him by now.

Yours Skeptically,

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!

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Flock web browser

I’ve been a Firefox aficionado for a very long time. Sagaro, quite recently, recommended that I try the Flock Social Web Browser. I did try it only because he recommended it and now I’m quite impressed. It is built on Firefox (doesn’t require Firefox to be installed though). It has a lot lot of useful features like GMail auto sign on, Twitter tweet updates, Blog updater, Flickr/Picasa tools. These things come in very handy for most of the time I spend online. I recommend that you go ahead and try Flock as well. I’m sure you’ll like it.

Yours Skeptically,
uleadin

P.S. I didn’t want to stay on Firefox 3 Beta. As such, Firefox has a lot of memory leaks. Beta is too dangerous for my ailing computer. Flock has happened just in time.

Joseph Vijay = Leonardo de Caprio?

I was reading this review on the new movie Kuruvi starring Ilaya Thalapathi (Young Lieutenant) Vijay on behindwoods. More than half way through the review I realized that it sounded almost exactly similar to a local version of Blood Diamond! I am literally shocked at the fact that Dharani who was remaking all hit telugu movies has decided to copy Hollywood! And who can be better than Vijay to do the lead role?! Vijay always acts in remade or stolen scripts so that he never fails. I am sure he has no guts to experiment! And, for this fact alone I prefer Ajit to Vijay. I hope I don’t hear Vijay fans comparing his ‘excellent’ acting skills with those of Leonardo de Caprio!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I was/am/will-always-be a die-hard Kamal Fan!

The Retail Sector

Tomorrow is dad’s birthday and I, being the lazy asshole, decided to run out and get him a gift today evening. Surprisingly my mom also offered to tag along. We went straight to Landmark, Nungambakkam. I realized that the last time my mom had come to Landmark was before I joined college. She didn’t know that it had grown so much. She was very surprised to see the suave and sophisticated new look that Landmark now sports. My entire family has been loyal to Landmark ever since it’s inception as a small book store in 1988. Although I started going only from 1995, my dad was a regular customer ever since they opened shop in 1988. Even today we have made it a point to go to Landmark atleast once in two weeks. Coming back to my mom’s reaction, The last time she had seen it, there was very little extra stuff inside Landmark as in no shades (cooling glasses ), no watches, no cutlery ware, no T-shirts, no iPods, no Tamil books. She was so damn surprised to see how tightly packed Landmark is now! I would say Landmark has grown quite a lot in the last 5 years. So much that my mom couldn’t even recollect which was stocked where when she last saw it!

This is also showing us one additional thing. It is the growth in the Indian Retail Sector. The sector has seen a phenomenal growth in the recent years and is due to see more growth in the near future with the entry of giants like Wal-Mart. So many players have cropped-up/expanded-drastically in the recent past, namely Reliance’s Fresh, Aditya-Birla’s More, Future-Group’s Central, Pantaloon and Big Bazaar, Trent’s Landmark and West Side, Raheja’s Shopper’s Stop, Local players such as Nilgiris, Vitan, Vivek’s and many more. This sector has grown way more than what was expected. I would also say it has the scope to expand more. If you are in a dilemma as to what to study after a non-professional course, I would recommend that you do an MBA specializing in the Retail Sector like this one or maybe this one.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I got my dad an antique alarm clock and he liked it very much.

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.

SEO. Anyone?

I’ve been largely fascinated by SEO (Search Engine Optimization) lately and am learning about it from various sources. I’ll be trying to toy around with this blog until I become a decent SEO guy. In fact, as of now, I don’t even know if it is possible to toy around with this blog using SEO. Let’s see. As of now this page comes sixth in Google. It’ll be nice if I can bring it onto second or third place.

Yours Skeptically,
uleadin

P.S. As of now, Amazon ranks first in Google for these keywords. Hope to beat ‘em too!

UPDATE: I saw only now (2 mins after posting this article) that this blog ranks third. I’m clueless as to how. Any explanations?

ScribeFire

It’s pretty much boring logging onto wordpress manually each time to post on this blog. So, I just dug the Internet for a desktop tool for posting into a blog and I found this FireFox Extension very attractive. I’m typing this post from the ScribeFire extension for FireFox. It’s got a good interface I must say. A lot better than the GNU Blog Posting tool. I recommend that all of you give ScribeFire a try. I seem to like it a lot, atleast as of now.

Yours Skeptically,
uleadin

P.S. This is not a sponsored review. I just felt like testing ScribeFire and came up with this post

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