Well even after writing one blog I have tonnes of time left to spend at the airport. So time to write another one. 2:43 pm it is and I have my flight at 7:50 pm. Yawn.
Well I will take this opportunity to put in words my last day at Austin.

Wake up at 8 am. By now I have mastered the art of getting ready, cooking food and eating it all in a measly 20 minutes. But it does require some serious multi tasking, an art that I mastered during my MBA :D We reach office 10 minutes late for the morning meeting. The reason behind the delay is another long story that we can leave for some other time. It is surely going to be a hectic day. Tie up the loose ends and present all my work to the client during a hour long meeting starting at 4 pm. As is the case with any IT projects, the client gives many suggestion which they suddenly managed to remember on the very last day. I make the changes and I am done by 6:30 pm. And this brings my current assignment to an end. A very interesting assignment it has been and one that has taught me a whole lot of things. As I head back to my hotel one final time in our Nissan Centra I really cant make out if I am happy going back to India. Till one day back I desperately wanted to go back to India and now I wish this could continue for a few more days. I reach my hotel and Prabhakar tells me that it will be dinner at his place. Now it would be grave injustice to his abilities if I didnt take atleast couple of lines letting you people know what a great cook he is. And his “Aloo Kurma” is really out of the world. He promised to make me Aloo Kurma. We went to our respective rooms and decided to meet by 9 pm for the final supper :D

At around 8:40 I got a call from Kannan (my manager for the assignment). He was in my hotel with his family and waiting for me in Prabhakar's room. As I reached Prabakar's room, I found all my friends had gathered in Prabahkar's room to give me a final see off. And they also had a really unexpected set of gifts for me. A Texas Longhorn jacket, a Longhorn cap, a big box of chocolates and a greeting card. It was a really touching gestur. There was Kavyaa(Kannan's three year old daughter) waiting to bid adeau to me and for one final time tell me the stories about Elomo, pink hair bands, hair clips, among many other things that we used to talk so much about. Must say she has to be the cutest kid I have even come across. We get talking once again and time flies. As a parting memory I get a pic clicked with her – Lucky PP sharing spotlight with a true superstar. And by now its late in the night and time for all to depart. How I wish they could stay back for that bit longer. As Kavyaa goes back to her house with her parents she keeps on waving her hand to her PP uncle and soon Kannan's car disappears. Me and Prabhakar head back to Prabhakar's room where we have our dinner. And probably for one last time I get to have Aloo Kurma made by Prabahkar. I come back to my room and go off to sleep – A sleep that brings to an end a truely remarkable day :) I am done with my 2nd blog of the day and its still 3:10 pm. A much larger Yaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Gone in 60 seconds

Its a very warm hello to all the enthusiastic and non enthusiastic readers of my blog. I am pretty sure that it will be difficult to find people belonging to the former category though :)

Now the first question to be answered is what brings me back to the world of blogs after such a long lay off. The answer to this is a saying that I use very often “Sitting idle can be a great facilitator”. Stranded in Newark airport and a waiting time of 9 hours- and what do I do? Promptly pull out my laptop and start typing. And thus this blog :D

Well I will start with the morning travel that almost never was. I had a flight to catch from Austin airport at 6:30 am. I book a cab for 5 am and it turns up 20 minutes late. And still the cab driver asks for gratuity!! Funny place Austin is I must say. Reach airport at 5:50 by my watch only to find a mile long line for check-in. I check in only to find that I have not given my boarding pass inside the envelope given to me by the person in the check in counter. I get back he gives me two boarding passes and both for the connecting flight from Newark!! Finally with my third trip to the check in counter I am given all the boarding passes. Bad day I tell to myself. By now the time is 6:05 and then there is another huge line for security check. Will I make it in time for the 6:30 flight? Suspense suspense suspense.Huff puff and PP reaches the security check counter by 6:20.

Nothing else can go wrong now I tell myself. Suddenly I find the guy at security check taking a very keen interest in my passport. Lifts his face up and non nonchalantly tells me that I have been handed the wrong boarding pass! The name mentioned in the Boarding pass belongs to some Thai lady!! WTF I tell myself – 6:23am. Security guy is nice enough to tell me that I can give the long line a miss and can come from the side path when I get my right boarding pass. Run run run and I get to the check in counter. The guy there, by now completely tired of seeing my face time and again tells me to go to the First class counter and get the new boarding pass – 6:27 am. Luckily the guy at the first class counter gets me the correct boarding pass in a flash and I head to the security counter once again. Surprise surprise! The guy who told me that I could take the side path is not to be found and there is some lady in his place. Pointing her finger at me and speaking with the mannerisms of a school teacher she lets me know that I have to come through the long line once again!! - 6:29 am. Now I cant catch the flight for sure. Suddenly the original security guy turns up and calls me and lets me in!! 6:32 already and my cabin baggage is going through the scanner. Quick quick please I plead to God. “This bag has a laptop” the guy scanning the bags lets out. So? Am I not allowed to take my laptop. “No sir. You need to remove your laptop and it needs to be checked!” And what follows is a 2 minute “long” exercise during which the guy cleans my laptop and gives it to me!! Nice gesture I must say but certainly at the wrong time! F**k 6:37 already. I am dead. I run for the boarding gate – bag on my shoulder, laptop in one hand and my shoes in the other! 6:39 and the door is about to close. I rush in. Certainly the last person to enter the flight and how!! The pretty flight attendant grins on seeing my set up. I reply with a freakish smile, put on my shoes and take my seat. As I take my seat, I thank God for making it in time. Last night I had increased the minute needle by 10 minutes so that I could wake up early. It didn't help me wake up early but surely played its part in me making it to the flight!

Dhoom 2

One of the most eagerly awaited Music tracks of the year - Dhoom2

Here is the song by song review:

1) Crazy Kiya Re: The album starts with this number sung by Sunidhi Chauhan. On hearing this song you have the feeling that there is still a lot of room for improvement. The music is good and catchy but the lyrics leave a lot to be desired. The song seems to be circumstantial, ie it might gel well with the context of the movie and people might start liking it after watching the video (I expect Ash gyrating to this song). But before that happens I don't expect the song to catch up with the masses

Rating:

2) Touch Me: This is a party pepper. Finally the Dhoom2 music seems to get into the groove. Alisha is at her sensuous best and gives a performance as we have come to expect from her. KK sings pretty well in tandem with Alisha and this song is undoubtedly the best song of the album. Worth hearing time and again.

Rating:

3) My name is Ali: As soon as you hear the music of the song you feel like singing the song "Dilbara" from Dhoom. A let down really. The music seems to be straight out of Dhoom. Pritam misses a trick here. And the lyrics are no where close to that of "Dilbara". I will prefer listening to "Dilbara" over this any day.

Rating:

4) Dil Laga Na: 5 singers in one single song!! My God, this song could so easily have been derailed. But the five singers some how manage to hold the song together and to good effect. Worth listening. This song is a reminiscent of the song "Salaami" from Dhoom. Expect this to be the climax song as all the actors come together.

Rating:

5) Crazy Kiya Re remix: I fail to understand the idea behind having remixes in an album. Two versions of the same song! I would prefer having a new song over a remix. Lack of creativity is it? Anyway the remixed version from Bunty Rajput is better than the original version of the song, which is completely avoidable. A far more pulse racing and foot tapping version, this is pure DJ material.

Rating:


6) Dhoom Again: Vishal Dadlani tries to do a Tata Young and doesn't really pull it off. As you listen to the song you get a feeling that Vishal tries a bit too hard. The flow of the original "Dhoom Machale" is clearly missing and the song moves like a misfiring racing car in a clear piece of race track. This song was meant to be pure adrenaline stuff but doesn't really live up to the expectation. Too slow and too many rough edges to be the title song of Dhoom2.

Rating:

Link For downloading the Dhoom2 Album :

Click to Download Dhoom2 Songs

Happy listening!!

The free rider concept

As per Wikipedia, free riders are actors who consume more than their fair share of a resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production. I guess there is no one who hasn't encountered a free rider at some point of time. They come in a wide range of shape and kind. I for sure have had my share of encounters with them. After all I am doing an Yem Bee Aye, the official factory for producing polished free riders. The free rider is generally born in engineering colleges and comes out as a polished product, suave debonair and sophisticated, after undergoing the academic rigor of Bee Skewl.

A freshly minted Free Rider just out of engineering college

A cultivated and cultured free rider graduating from a Bee Skewl

The following are a few common traits generally observed across all kinds of free riders in Bee Skewls - The cool, confident, poised and cosmopolitan type :

a) (S)He will be around when (s)he is least needed but can never be found when you have work for him/her

b) (S)He will make you feel that (s)he is the busiest person in the group

c) (S)He will make you feel that (s)he is doing a favour on you by doing his/her part of the work

d) (S)He the most benevolent and charitable person in the group, always doling out free coffees to team members for turning up late for group meets.

e) In every group meet (s)he will admit that (s)he is not doing his/her part properly and promise to mend up for that in future only to say the same thing all over once again in the next meet.

f) After the work gets done, (s)he will let his/her group mates know that (s)he could have done a much better job had (s)he been in charge but allowed others to do the work as (s)he didn't want to be bossy and impose his/her ideas on the group

g) Generally (s)he acts as the coolest dude/babe of the group. And coolest (s)he is as (s)he manages to steer clear from the work leaving his/her group mates fuming

h) Finally (s)he will be the one who will stress the most on group work... Work well done? Group work you see.. the "whole" group did it!

But then all the above stated "group behaviour"(behaviour in a group that is) are subject to the condition that (s)he turns up for the group work which is again among the most unlikely things to happen.

This brings us to the all important question: How do you counter them? Well I am not entirely sure that many people have an answer to this question. I for one dont have the answer. But the day I get to know the answer I will make sure that the answer remains confined to me because any further dissemination of this information will put my survival at stake!

Youtube.com

It was just last week that I came across this web page named Youtube.com. The kind of assortment and variety of videos that you get here is fascinating.


If are haven't been to Youtube.com then you are certainly missing out on something(rather quite a few things). So just tune in and play :)


And for all those who are waiting eagerly for the Dhoom 2 music, check out the Dhoom2 title track at Youtube.

Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZCAmzk10eM

The Link For downloading the Dhoom2 Album :
Click to Download Dhoom2 Songs

The journey called F1 :)

One fine Sunday afternoon in 1991 a tall and lanky driver driving for Jordan made his debut in F1 at Spa

The exceptional talent that the driver possessed caught the eye of Flavio Briatore who offered him a drive with Benetton for the rest of the season

After scoring many victories with Benetton the defining moment came in 1994 when a new world champion was crowned - Micheal Schumacher (Notice Flavio Briatore holding Schumi on his shoulder!!)

And world champion did he become in some dramatic fashion taking out Damon Hill, the other contender for world championship in a spectacular manner (The Car on two wheels is Schumacher's that took Hill out of the race!!!).

Micheal Schumacher went on to become the youngest world champion to successfully defend his championship as he won for the 2nd time running in 1995.



In 1996 Schumi moved over to Ferrari... an association that brought Schumi 5 world championships, 71 wins and 6 constructor championships.

But all was not rosy when they started out. Ferrari was not the force that it is now. Ferrari and Schumi set about developing the team and the car.

The results started to show as they went better...

and better still.

In these years Schumi shared some fascinating battles with the amicable Finn Mika Hakkinen

After 4 dry years Schumi finally became the world champion once again in 2000.

And in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004.

Schumi finally called it quits in 2006 with a back to the wall drive in his final race, thereby proving that he was leaving F1 at the prime of his form.

I wish I could have given Schumi a farewell gift :(

I was there following the pre-qualifying sessions on F1.com. I was there following the qualifying session. I was there at the very start of the race. And I was there till the very end. Hoping against hope that Schumi would pull out an elephant out of the hat (nothing less than an elephant would have sufficed) and go on to win the world championship for a record eighth time. And did whatever he may he did not have any bit of luck going his way. Ever since he qualified 10th I had this stinking feeling that it was not going to be his day. And with every misfortune that he encountered during the race came a feeling of Deja vu. It had to happen. There was someone sitting up there who was conspiring against Schumi, probably wary of the demi-God status that he was attaining as his career drew to an end. He had to be a mortal after all. But everytime Schumi was thrown into the alleys of uncertainty he came back all the more stronger. P10 at qualifying- P6 within first two laps- the king was on the move. As soon as a great overtaking maneuver on the outside of Fischi saw Schumi take P5 came a rear tyre burst. And that too when he had barely crossed the pit stop entry. A full lap in 3 tyres ensured that Schumi rejoined the race in the last spot, some 70 seconds behind the race leader. 50 laps later Schumi was once again all over Fischi again and this time he did have his way. 71 laps of the race and the champion had given his fans a drive to treasure and remember. Had the tyre failure happened a couple of laps earlier, the Prancing horse of Schumi would have certainly made it to P2.

In terms of sheer quality it surely has to go down as one of the finest drives by Schumi. The only other race that comes to my mind that was anywhere near this one was the final race of 1998 when Schumi was crossing swords with Mika Hakkinen for the world championship. It was another similar race where Schumi's Ferrari, after qualifying on pole position, stalled in the starting grid. Starting from 22nd position after car repair, it was a back to the wall drive that took Schumi to 3rd place when his tyres gave way and he had to retire. Schumi sure has had his share of bad luck in important and deciding races.

I expected Schumi to win - I wanted Schumi to win. I thought nothing less than a win would be a fitting farewell to the great driver that he has been. But as I look back at the race I feel that the gritty 4th place finish was a far better farewell to Schumi than a "leading from the front win" would have been. It allowed the champion to go out in a blaze of glory. It gave him the opportunity to show his true character, the nerves of steel that he is known to possess and the chance to prove to the world that he was indeed leaving the arena at the peak of his prowess.

I wonder how F1 is going to be without Schumi. I hate to think of it. I have been following F1 since 1994. Every race I went back to my TV set to see Schumi complete one more lap of the race track. I wonder if I will ever follow F1 that keenly again. And I am sure I am not the only one thinking likewise. The king may have been dethroned but even in his defeat he got immortalized. Take a bow.

The relevance of moral education

Not long back I watched this amazing movie : "The Pirates of the Silicon valley". Based on the lives of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, this movie is a must watch for all those who genuinely appreciate quality stuff. Coming from the stable of Warner bros this movie exemplifies how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates played the game of deceit to perfection to build their respective business empire. Both of them at different stages of the movie quote Picasso - "Good artists copy, the great ones steal". And both the czars actually do that, and much more.

I will say no further about the movie. This post is not meant to review the movie. I did enough of that in my last post. Rather I will take up an issue that hit me hard while watching the movie. The issue of "morality, integrity and incorruptibility". Things that we were taught in the school, things that we mugged up to get a "100 on 100" in moral education paper and things that we so easily forget when it comes to real time implementation.

This brings us to the relevance of moral education. Just about every person who made it big had some shades of Grey to him/her. For every single ABJ Abdul Kalam you will find hundreds of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I guess there is not one businessman who made it big without ever having tinkered with law. Not one played by the book. Yet we continue to learn the virtues of morality and truthfulness in class 6, just to forget them at our convenience. The damage has been done. And its irreparable. The menace of deceit and crookedness have been deeply ingrained in our society. There is no looking back at moral education. They are probably best confined to books. The rules of the game have changed and the new rules are that there are no rules. Probably the best we can do now is stop burdening the little school going children with that extra couple of books on moral eduction that they have to carry in their back breaking school bags. Because if we don't believe in something then we cant make kids believe in that by asking them to mug up books. Kids are smart enough to see and comprehend what exactly is happening around them. And if we really have to bring the good old days of trust and credence back then we need to start practicing these things ourselves and setting an example for the coming generation. But then this would mean putting up a lone fight and in this age of instant gratification I don't see many people willing to fight it out.

Signing off with a rather abrupt end. After all a confused mind cannot ensure a smooth ending!!

DON and the thinking Indian

So I finally managed to have my way with something as I caught the first day show of DON. Had been waiting for "DON-the chase begins" to hit the movie theaters for quite sometime now. Not that I had high expectations from the movie, but I sure was curious to see the movie- curious to see how SRK would measure up to the role immortalized by the biggest star of Indian Movie industry, curious to see if the hugely talented Farhan Akhtar could out stage the director whose only hindi movie (his only other movie was a super hit Bengali movie) was a colossal hit.

Just in time I was at the ticket counter for there were just six seats remaining and the guy standing behind me bought four of them. I had just about sufficient time at hand to have some golgappes and a plate of tikki chat before the movie. As soon as the movie started I heard the person to my right murmuring that SRK cannot give a performance akin to that of AB .The benchmark had been set. It was not just any other SRK movie. It was the SRK movie that would determine if he was actually anywhere near Big B.

The movie started with an action sequence that you are more likely to find in a James Bond movie. But then that was about it. The movie from then went downhill at a pace, as Sidhu would like to say, of "an Indian Taxi meter". There were some unexpected moments in the movie but it was largely the same old movie repackaged in a rather loud packaging to make it look spectacular. And spectacular it did look but then all the grandeur and spectacle turned it into a run of the mill Bollywood masala movie, a far cry from the subdued but highly gripping original.

So is the movie a dud? The thinking Indian (well those who like to use their mind while watching movie ;) ) will definitely not like this movie. But then superhit movies are hardly made keeping them in mind(KANK, K3G anyone?). This movie appeals to the common mass. It has action that any Hollywood movie bereft person will happily gulp down his throat, it has thrill, it has great music, it has an ending that no one expected and it has those amazing looking belles. Did I mention about them somewhere. How could I fail mentioning them?! Now look it is really not possible to appreciate the beauty of the lovely ladies appearing in the big screen when you have your better half sitting beside you (Don't tell me you thought I was watching the movie alone). But from whatever little I could appreciate (oops!) they sure were looking stunning.

After sitting through 3 and half hours of the movie and hearing a few million times that we wasted 300 bucks (my better half is a "thinking Indian" you see) and convinced that SRK is a great actor (and it was not exactly the movie that convinced me the same... it was more due to
someone telling me this a zillion times during the course of the movie) I got to know that that I still had a little space left in my tummy and so munch munch I went again. And this time it was the turn of Chocolate Sin(yum yum) and some fancy Chinese stuff... which obviously I did not order.

Finally it was time to come back to my hostel room and take some much needed rest. The first thing that I did after reaching my room was to find out what critics thought of the movie. Now "critics" are these amazing brand of people who have the incredible knack of getting things wrong almost all the while. The movies that get a 4 star rating generally run empty houses. So be wary of the critics!! They surely belong to the lot of thinking Indians.
I opened Rediff, opened the Review page and hit the Page Down button... Lo!! The movie had got a 2 star rating. Opened the 2nd review and here it was 1 1/2 star!!! Now now didn't the movie get a liberal dose of whistles (which I suppose generally means thumbs up) when it ended? But then the critics belong to the lot of "thinking Indians". So 2 star was the best the movie could manage. This made me wonder if there should be two sets of ratings. One for mass appeal and one for ingenuity that the movie brings. In case there are two sets of ratings then DON would probably get a 3 and half for mass appeal and a 2 star for the the ingenuity. Now only if the critics could do something of this sort. Hellllllllloooooo. You people listening?

Seems I have wasted too much time on this movie. 3 and 1/2 watching and another hour writing this post. 4 1/2 hours for such a movie is far far more than I would have wanted to spend for it. My one and only suggestion for this movie: Wait till you get a CD with good print and watch it on your comp. Certainly not worth watching it in the movie hall. Better wait for Dhoom2 and hope that it lives upto the hype.

Regards,
A "thinking Indian" ;)

Yessssssssssssss

You just can’t imagine the ecstasy when you remember an old id... October 27th 2005 and today is 19th Jan.. Took me quite sometime to remember the id of my Blog!! Well it is common to forget passwords but what does one do when he/she forgets his/her id?? Well why is it that we dont write she/he or for the matter her/his, but rather stick to he/she... I wonder why they call it a male dominated society

Hey I am changing... Apart from going bald and looking older by the day (now stop calling me a kid will you) I am also trying to give another dimension to myself (Mind it I am trying.. returns not guaranteed).

Don’t feel like writing anymore. Yaaaaaaiiiiiiii yaaaaaammmmmmm sooooo damn Lazy.. Tata

And remarks not entertained.

Finally I am off

Now when was the first time when I thought of creating a blog.. must have been some couple of years back. But then never had the kind of time that I seem to have at my disposal currently. Now did someone tell you that life in B-Schools is very hectic!!