Hope... the only best thing

As the hero says in The Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is good, may be the best thing", yesterday our launch pad demo was successful. There was an initiative inside our company to launch new product ideas. there was huge price money for the winners. 

It started with whyne and cry as this is extra work compared to your project. My team is going through some tough days at work. There is so much work and our idea required lot of learning's on new components. the event was competitive and guess what! we put out a good show. 

First time inside the company many new not just my name, but all other team members name, their work in the project and our VP, Director told us these will be productized soon. No better reward on our hope on us, our innovation

I m happy now!

Raghu

Two Unattended issues

In 2008, i believe we faced two main unattended issues unlike other years. Unfortunately we are not attempting to solve the root cause of these problems, it is fitting case of humans causing damage to fellow humans.... 

The award goes to 

Terrorism - Here humans kill fellow humans in the name of religion, caste, region, cult etc

Global Warming - Here in the name of industrialization or development, we are failing to create healthier world for our future generations.

As they say nature will have its say one day on these issues

State of Indian States

if you ever want to choose a new state in India for business / personal migration, you know which one to choose from the list below.

• Andhra Pradesh - Naxalism, Communal Riots, Telenga issue
  
• Arunachal Pradesh - Naxalism, Border issue with China
  
• Assam - Naxalism, Terrorism, Illegal migrants from Bangaladesh
  
• Bihar - Naxalism, Gundas, Regional issues with Maharastra
  
• Chhattisgarh - Naxalism
  
• Goa - Terrorism
  
• Gujarat - Terrorism, Communal Riots
  
• Haryana - TBD
  
• Himachal Pradesh - TBD
  
• Jammu and Kashmir - Terrorism, Kashmir issue, Communal Riots
  
• Jharkhand - Naxalism
  
• Karnataka - Naxalism, Terrorism, Communal Riots, Regional conflicts with neighbors
  
• Kerala - Budding Terrorism, Regional issue with Tamilnadu
  
• Madhya Pradesh - Naxalism, Communal Riots
  
• Maharashtra - Terrorism, Communal Riots, Regional Conflict with Karnataka and Bihar
  
• Manipur - Naxalism
  
• Meghalaya - Naxalism
  
• Mizoram - Naxalism
  
• Nagaland - Naxalism
  
• Orissa - Naxalism, Communal Riots
  
• Punjab - Terrorism
  
• Rajasthan - Terrorism, Gujjar Issue
  
• Sikkim - Naxalism
  
• Tamil Nadu - Regional Issue with all neighboring states, SriLankan Tamil support (?)
  
• Tripura - Naxalism
  
• Uttar Pradesh - Naxalism, Communal Riots, Terrorism
  
• Uttarakhand - Naxalism
  
• West Bengal - Budding terrorism, Illegal Immigrant issue, Singur
  

Lessons from Italian GP

Did you see yesterday's Italian GP, if not, you missed one of the wonderful races in F1 history. It was a dull day to start with at Monza, with rain, overnight rain, track was wet. In fact for the first time i saw race starting with Safety car, just as a precautionary step towards avoiding mishaps like what happened in the past (FYI, Italian racing track is one of the deadliest tracks and is known for its accidents leading to death).

I thought there were moments that requires special mention... these are my thoughts.. obviously i may miss some, feel free to add,

1. Sebastian Vettel, youngest ever F1 champ. The following is the excerpts from www.f1.com site. 

They laughed when Sebastian Vettel and Toro Rosso snatched pole position in qualifying - but that turned to cheers of admiration on Sunday when the 21 year-old German became Formula One’s youngest ever winner after a brilliant wet-weather victory at Monza.

2. It was a treat to watch Hamilton during yesterday's race. You start at 15th place, you are a title contender, your nearest driver is 6th in starting grid, what will you do? Hamilton showed pure character, aggression and technical perfection and speed of execution during yesterday's race. it only shows his self belief and driving skill... He would have bettered his position, if he need not pit for 2nd time to change intermediate tyres

until next

Raghu

the day i was born

The day i was born (2nd Sept, 3.30 AM) just occurred for 2008 as well. Another year passed and certainly it denotes i am aging...
If i look back last 1 year, it was professionally successful year. i spent almost all the time for the project @ work. Thanks to very kind and co-operative team at Business Objects, i was able to set straight certain expectations at work.
It wasnt all that good year at personal life. Due to work, i failed to return many calls/emails on time, failed to call many, failed to write to many. The big push was needed at work, but the cost way too much. Hence i decided from now on be more normal in managing both personal / professional commitments henceforth...

Raghu

Weekend Movies

How many movies can you see over a weekend? With your existing weekend plan for the day?
I happened to see Zodiac, My Cousin Vinny, Ugly aur Pagli, Sigh is Kingh, Bachna Ai Haseeno, Aamir, Shoot the piano player and may be 100th time Notting Hill.

I leave my preferred sound track from Notting Hill... just in case if you haven't heard it outside the movie...

Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo

when you say nothing at all- Ronan Keating

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=AuJrEBtmM1Q

Until next
R

Leader (Everyone) should accept his failure

If any of you seen the finals of IPL yesterday, you will now know, as a leader how to generalize failure to the team you belong to rather than accept it on you. Yes, In the presentation Dhoni mentioned that his team failed in all the 3 departments (i.e. bowling, batting and fielding). It is team's failure or his failure to provide competent team member's opportunity to fair play.

In Batting, they promoted Kapugedera instead of Badrinath in 17th 0ver which was a blunder by him. Badrinath is a known big hitter and in form. easily we could have scored 15 more runs and could have set a good target.

In bowling, again, they did not provide Badrinath an opportunity to bowl. When choice for bowler for 20th over came, again ball was given by Dhoni to balaji whose figures were 3-0-34-0. what do you expect the result of 1 over 8 runs?

In fielding it was raina and partiv patel to be blamed for dropping Y. Pathan @13 (who went to score half century) and parthiv giving away easily the bye run on a wide ball in the last over.

I guess the entire team would have felt bad on what Dhoni mentioned in the presentation. They put in their best efforts and some of Dhoni's move did not click well. Rather than attributing it against team it is better to accept failure on him. This will improve his image and make him a better person to work with.


it looks like chennai played well, but Rajasthan definitely played like champions. they deserve this victory.

-Raghu

Fun @ Mumbai

In 2000 i went to Bombay to do my project in Tata Institute. Yesterday i again traveled for my french embassy visa to Mumbai. i was wondering it will be one hell of a trip after being let down by Arun aka Arai. Yes, i was supposed to see Mumbai along with him and landed there when he was traveling to Delhi at the same time (useless fellow!!). Becz of this confusion, i could not change my prior reservation of 9AM sunday flight :-( without arai around, i thought its going to be one dull and solitude visit... i never knew i had many hidden talents which brought in the fun element during this mumbai trip. some of these events listed below,

1. I wanted to visit vadala road, 5 gardens, bsnl colony, brij samosa shop, ram/krishna pani poori shop and amar restaurant (short list of items for one place vadala road). I took a BST bus to andheri and from their took a train to bandra. In Bandra station i asked for ticket to CST in harbor line. the person in counter asked me "aap mahim se change karogae". i said OK without much thinking... when i used to live in vadala road, we always take train to bandra in harbor line and change at matunga rd station. so without giving much of heed to what the ticket issuing person was saying, i landed in matunga railway station only to find out it is no longer the same station and there is no connectivity to harbor line :-( to add to it, i approached a ticket checker, showed him my ticket and asked him where i can take harbor line? Goodness me!! firstly i was in wrong station and on top of it.. i approached lion in its den!! he verified my ticket and told me it is the ticket for harbor line, but i am at wrong station.... Luckily all religion Gods were on my side, when i bought ticket from Andheri, i bought till churchgate with return.. i survived event #1

2. Landed in vadala road...... expecting a delicious lunch @ Amar hotel..... all places (listed above) existed except Amar hotel. If you havent been to vadala road, u will not realize the missing piece. it is a perfect residential locality without any restaurants !! my only hope also vanished!! with so much fire in my belly.. i approached one old man who was a localite and enquired about Hotel Amar.. he told it was closed for longer time.. he explained history behind that hotel location... my only hope also vanished!! with so much fire in my belly.. this time my savior was Lord Ram.. sorry Sri Ram bhel poori shop. there used to be days when this shop opens only in the evening say 3PM and gets closed by 6.30 PM. so much people will buy that this shop will become empty in short time each day. we used to catch early bus in tata institute just to meet Lord Ram (he he). had chat ... the taste had not changed much... again survived event #2

3. walked all the way till Dadar as i used to do.. landed in dadar. took a fast train to church gate and by mistake got down in Mumbai central only to find it was a wrong station.. by the time i realized this, there was 100 people around me......

4. Finally arrived @Hotel Ambassador Guess what.. i ordered lunch and headed towards the bed in the room as i was too tired...

it did not stop here... whole of this trip was marked by headache.. as i type this now, i continue to have headache..

5. woke up at 7.. decided to walk around marine drive from nariman point... Awesome and priceless walk!!!

6. decided to have Pizza @ dominos. was searching for an outlet in the neighborhood.. walked for more than an hour only to find a dominos service guy in his bike... ran and caught him and asked him for the address. he told me shiv sagar and he ran away... i did not know where shiv sagar was located... again was determined to have pizza that night... finally got to know about its existance in colloba which was 3 KMs away from church gate... u know what i would have done... walked all the way....... for FOOD

7. as i came out of dominos, i came to a bus stop... there came a beautiful lady asking if i wanted to go to church gate with her...... My god!!! if she was what i think about her (dont know, i must confess, but could not resist this doubt in my mind in a area like collba around 11PM). i told her i am not going to colloba (a lie). she even arranged a shared cab for me with one more guy sharing the same... i resisted... the cab driver was not leaving me!! i do not know why i boarded the car (may be it was getting late and i did not wait in the bus stand)... it all ended soon as i got down in churchgate... gave my share to her and started to walk straight towards my hotel...... it was different experience.

today in short..
i landed in andheri station... as i came out, i saw bus to sivaji airport... immediately got in.. not realizing that i was heading towards intl airport.
then took an auto to get into domestic terminal 1A gate1. Again KingFisher check in was in gate 2 and after reaching gate 2, i came to know that my flight was in different terminal (1B) .... walked again!! flight was delayed by 2 hours landed in bangalore only to know about cab strike... luckily again i got an auto driver from b.ghatta road itself... he dropped me at my home some 1 hour ago...

it all happened in Mumbai!!

until next
Raghu

Neutral (?) Umpiring

People who spoiled Indian victory today in SCG test

The Great Indian Public Toilet!!!

My new year Eve was fantastic. i spent Last Sunday with Partha @ his home in Annan Koil, i also visited the famous Natraja Temple in Chidambaram . For one who has read about this temple in literature, it must be an splendid experience in waiting... You can say the entire city of Chidambaram revolves around the gopurams of this temple.

As i entered on one one of the gopuram, i saw some grill path way at the entrance. Like me, the person before me was inquisitive to know why such a structure in walk way... His friend explained it is to prevent cows not to enter the temple premises... An effort to leave the temple only to well grown/educated humans with an expectation that it will be maintained well. as you walk you pass through a tiny little garden before to reach inner gopuram... and then the praharam inside is really huge. A pleasant place to walk, sit any day evening.... There are more gardens around the outer praharam wall.

But the happiness was short lived until I walked past this little garden in the path way. To protect the garden around the outer praharam, they have built fence on the other side and wrote "Siva Siva" in the fence... All these adds to the grandeur of the temple... Guess what our educated people have done to this inner garden around the wall.. They are simply using it as a toilet. At least i saw two sides and both the stretches is used as a Great Indian public toilet. to add it, some sections of the fence also is used as a dust bin.

Also we saw some 10 - 15 cows inside the temple... i exclaimed to partha "how come they are roaming inside the praharams, despite protection in the entrance"... partha replied .. "may be they entered before the structure was laid and now they cannot go out!!!" I am sure the same scene exists in many such temples in Tamil Nadu......

I read about the huge cry in news papers, magazines, TV programs about demolition of temples in Indonesia and the protests by HINDRAF organization along with other requests for the ethinic Indians... Considering the plight of a temple like Chidambaram or any temple for the matter maintained similarly , we need a greater movement from the people to educate the visitor crowd to respect the place of worship of Gods, little common sense from the visitors for the temple can make big difference. I am sure no other community is causing the place of worship with their own dirt, only the temples in Tamil nadu are more prone to such dis respect.

Do you remember my previous blog topic about the great indian bike rider in bangalore roads. This person is no different from the visitors of the temple who are using this place as toilet. Again it lies in the mindset of people. Together we can make the difference.........

Until next
Raghu