Life or something like that !!

It was a summer evening when my little bro came home after his play hours. And along he brought a little , bruised and almost dying , sparrow. He had found it near his play ground and out of child like curiosity he got it home to see if we can save , at least try to save, its life. There wasn't much chances of survival of the sparrow, which had not even properly grown wings and looked like attacked by some animal, but being children for us nothing was not possible unless tried. So we started operation save the sparrow. We put dettol on the bruises and applied ointments. With cotton we poured drops of milk to its mouth. Which the sparrow seemed to be taking in. Then we let it rest. We had a discarded mechanical mouse catcher , which was made as its nest. The sparrow started responding to the care taken by us and gradually its bruises started healing. In an week or so it had fully recovered and in the process all of my family members developed a liking, an attachment towards it. ...

jo chaahega mil jaayega Tere bhi din aayenge chhote, achcha khaasa hil jaanyeg a And so goes lyrics of one popular Hindi number, which Ganja and I used to sing along around 8 years back. Year was late 2001 and we were in final year of engineering at REC Warangal. IT slump of 2001-02 saw fewer and fewer companies visiting us for campus recruitment and most of my batch mate, including me, were left high and dry. Cut to 2009, things have changed for all of us, settling in life now. Christmas holiday of this year resulted in a long weekend and gave me an opportunity to have a short trip to my alma-matter, now NIT Warangal. Early morning on Christmas day I, along with my wife and a close friend, started for Warangal. Once we reached there and were inside the campus I was like wow, all old memories of college days became live in front of my eyes. I felt like I am reading stories from an old book. College was being given a face lift after becoming NIT 7 years back, but the underlying essen...

The other day I was at the eye clinic , waiting for my turn to see the doctor. There was this old lady sitting beside me and we striked converstaion. She asked where am I from? Ummmm , lets see. I was born in Gaya , brought up in Motihari (Both in Bihar). Then in Narsinghragh , a remote village in south Jharkhand. Then next 8 years I was in Jamshedpur , where currently my parents are settled. Then I moved out to Warangal, in Andhra Pradesh , for my graduation. After which I have been working in Hyderabad close to 8 years now. So where do I belong to? Bihar . where I was born. Or Jharakhand , where I was brought up. Or Andhra Pradesh , where I studied and then currently working? Am I a Jamshedpurian , where my parents are settled now and where I frequently visit. Or am I a Hyderabadi , where I stay to earn my living? Or am I an Indian?

Who is the Murphy anyway? Who ever he is, he makes his presence felt when you are least likely expecting him. Sometime he acts as spanner in the wheel and other just a deflated tyre. But for sure you , me and others are affected by him day-in , day-out. Him affecting us can be minimized but the thought of altogether removing his presence would be a foolhardy one. However we can be better prepared to tackle anything and everything which may, potentially, go wrong. By paying attention to detail . Even before you start executing, a well thought out plan should be in place. This is the " well thought out " part of the planning I am stressing at. Proper care should be taken in initial planning so as to capture all necessary activities needed to complete the task. While listing down activities you would know what could possibly go wrong while executing the task. And that's where you need to have your contingency management in place. Which can be arrived at by "what i...

When was the last time you saw a movie almost entirely shoot on sets? And foreign locations for songs? That is very 80s man. Add to that childish situational comedy and sub standard acting by the male protagonist. You have Gazab Kahani of Ajab Prem. How many Indian Christian you know who speaks Hindi with forced English accent, the female protagonist and her family does so in the movie.And oh, add to that Atif Asalam’s voice for Ranbir Kapoor.A full two and half hours of atyachar. Not even a month back RK gave appreciable performance in Wake Up Sid and in APGK he was almost pathetic. A director’s actor?

No, I can’t. And wait a minute there is no language as Bihari. It is the way we speak Hindi out there sounds like altogether different language, aka Bihari or perhaps a new dialect. Well it is not a dialect either. It is Hindi with regional flavor and some accent to it. You find many dialects of Hindi being spoken in Bihar, one such dialect Magahi (Magahi paan, beetle, is famous all over India) is what my folks speak. And I don’t know Magahi as well. In fact hardly many in my generation speak Magahi. That is sad. Essentially languages are very integral part of any culture and with most of us confining ourselves to English lately its matter of merely a decade when not many languages would be around. In face I read somewhere that every year 400 languages are getting extinct every year (?). Can something be done about it?

So TED was here, here in India for three days. TED talks going for three whole days in Mysore. But I could not attend those sessions. Reason: money honey!! It was too costly for me to attend. Well never mind, there is always next time. But there is addition to the To Do list and someday I don’t only want to be in the audience at one of those TED sessions but I want to speak at one. Hopefully on the topic related to technology and design.

Not really -- they have to motivate themselves. You can't motivate people anymore than you can empower them. Employees have to motivate and empower themselves.I can motivate only myself. If I have to motivate my people to deliver result then perhaps they are in wrong job. Having said that, an environment, however, can be set up where they best motivate and empower themselves. The key is knowing how to set up the environment for your people. Essentially you can be enablers for others to be motivated[self]. I am exploring the ways to do so for my team. Obviously organizational level parameters like money, career growth and skill development , recognition etc are already in place. What I am looking for is team level local enablers.

We had recently joined the college and were under the process of “getting introduced to seniors”. For R Basu, my classmate who was from West Bengal, the usual question asked was if he and Jyoti Basu, the then chief minister of West Bengal, were related in some way? Obviously that was not the case. And that’s what R Basu used to tell. But you know seniors; they were never giving up on the question. Fed up one day R Basu said yes there was a very strange relationship between him and Jyoti Basu. Strange relationship? As in? He replied “ We are strangers!!”

That's about the red Panda you find in the Himalayan mountains. And sure enough they don't go around shooting as the title suggests. Its about red Panda's food habit and I intend to say that they eats shoots (mostly bamboo) and tree leaves. An unintended comma distorts whole intended meaning of the sentence. Which could have been avoided had attention to detail been paid. Paying attention to detail does help. Be it professional front or personal life. You put clothes in the washing machine , put required detergent , let in the water and switch on the machine. But did you put the water outlet at proper place? Missing to pay attention to detail on the process of getting your cloths clean using washing machine can flood your entire house. I did that twice :-O. Shipping application/delivering product/concluding project on the deadline promised looks to be a wishful thinking. But I know this is very much possible had attention to detail is paid at various stages of developme...

Watch Kenya sing for India :)

....to attend this meeting!! Well one of the most common trait of being Indian in India is not being punctual (Incidentally same Indian when in other countries on business becomes very punctual, huh!!). We, at office, have this daily status update meeting. And sure enough apart from usual issues like not sticking to the agenda of the meeting, late start and hence later finish of the meeting was norm . We tried many things (like some games, yes games!! and monetary fines etc.) but in vain. Then some time back we hit upon this idea of a ball with " I am too busy too attend this meeting" written on it. And anybody coming late will be made to hold this ball for entire duration of the meeting. And guess what? It worked. Now within the grace period of two minutes everybody is in :). Not a nice way to make respect time but effective nevertheless!!

A candlelight vigil , as described by Wikipedia, is an outdoor assembly of people carrying candles, held after sunlight. And this is in vogue . There was this unfortunate terror attack in Mumbai and we all saw public outcry and their angst against political establishment. Every citizen of this country started wanting to do something for his country. But what can an individual do? Oh wait; there is this novel idea of a candlelight vigil. A symbolic solidarity for victims - of Mumbai terror attack or Jessica Lal . So we lit a candle, join people in-mass and that’s it. Our part is done. We feel content. At least we joined the peace march. We did our bit. Then we, The people of India , go to hibernation till something else happens. All this is good. At least we still have some feelings left of our country and countrymen. But this is not it. We need to go beyond just lighting a candle. Otherwise that is just hypocrisy. Or what else you say when you see people not bothering to even stop whe...

In paying tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in fighting the Mumbai terror. We all deeply mourn the loss their families we as nation have suffered. This is heartening though to know there are still few who don't care for their lives even when they are at the line of fire when they are doing their duty. The India salutes you all. May your soul rest in peace. Amen!!

Lets face it, our current government has been a complete failure in tackling the securities issues. And intelligence department,, huh,, is complete farce. I know a person working with IB , claiming that the department runs on paper clippings, news articles and its source of information are media coverages. Even if you take that with a pinch of a salt, that is like WTF?.We need complete revamp of intelligence system.Not to forget about change in help at home department. Some news paper rightly commented that Shivraj Patil is the most incompetent home minister ever. Home , foreign , defence and finance ministry all need some dynamic and aggressive leaders. Not to miss the prime minister. All these guys needs balls to take some decision above from party politics. Do they have in them to take some decision and stand by it , similar to testing nuke?? Thats for government , lets look inward at ourselves, we the people of India. Proud to be an Indian?? For what ?? The poverty , the backwa...

Yes,I am scared about safety,my safety,safety of my family,safety of my neighbor.Who is responsible for our safety? I don't want to be another victim of a blast or a bullet. Who will ensure safety of each and every citizen of this country? Its gross , its outrageous. Whatever happened in the Mumbai. An event can change the whole course of life for somebody. Now is that time for India. Life will not be same again for us, Indians. We have to stop being indifferent, we were not being tolerant. We were indifferent. There is no Mumbai spirit. People were just indifferent. It didnt happen to me, thank God. Next day everything is normal. God damn it!! How can one ignore what happened in trains, and continue with one's daily life as if nothing had happened. That is not tolerance for God's sake. That is indifference to reality. As long as I am not directly affected that is fine. I dont care what happened yesterday and carry on with my own life. That is escapism. Turn back face ...

The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that! Stumbled upon this quote from Rocky Balboa .

Nor (11-8 ) is equal to 2. Stupid!!

"Hello sir, I am calling on behalf of Tata-AIG. Can I have few minutes of your time?" "And that would be regarding?" "About some products of ours". "I am busy, please give me a call some time tomorrow." "Okey sir. May I know your name sir??" WTF? So these tele-marketers just pick up any no. randomly and call up. Without even knowing the name of the person, forget about having other relevant information of the person they are calling up. Some time back I had registered my no. in NDNC Registry. Now it was time to make to complaint to my telecom service provider. I called the customer care and lodged a complaint against violation of NDNC service. If you are constantly bugged by different companies for takeing credit cards/loans/insurance policies and what not , it is time to register your cellphone no. to NDNC Registry and putting an end to all unsolicited commercial communnication .

Kyunki jo balti nahi hote hain o chori karte hain . Blatant plagiarism on Ibibo.Check out this link and now go through my old posts. This is bloody bull yaar ! I tried to contact the author of the post , but there is no way I can contact him without registering with the site and proving how big a balti I’m. I have sent my concern to the owner of the site using contact us link. Lets see what they have to say about the same.