becoming kewl

was on penguins blog (which i think is very cool btw).. and saw her pseud little counter which keeps track of who comes to her blog all that..

so i installed it , and now all u nerds from antartica who used to visit me .. i can see you!

btw - it must be quite smart cos i tried to come back to my page again and it didnt increase the reader count! damn damn!

taking a tag: my first :)

Succumbing to the pitfalls of promising something you haven’t thought through – yet again.. here I am taking up unpredictables tag on ‘my biggest quirks’

To be completely honest, I don’t remember if it was quirks or if was oddities or weirdnesses or what – but I think it was generally in that area and my current in-flight status (Bangalore to Mumbai) doesn’t allow me to go and check - so here goes!

1) Superstition : I like to believe this is not in a very bad way J, but I have a lucky interview shirt, the lucky cricket whites, the lucky bat, the ‘big presentation’ set of clothes and all that..
2) Bathroom floors: I absolutely ABHOR walking on wet bathroom floors, just completely hate them. Fullstop.
3) Am I weird to not like middle seats in flights. And NO – its nothing to do with my waistline!
4) The need to see everything, always – for those who wear spectacles – ud probably understand what I go through – I don’t take my specs off while sleeping, while bathing even swimming till I found powered goggles J
5) I need my ears warm – honestly, I don’t know why this is not the case with everyone. The one part of the body I need to cover first in cold times is my ears – why do ppl stare at a poor guy using a blanket to cover his ears in a flight? If I wasn’t scared of being killed with bong based comments, id wear a monkey cap forever. Id even get them matching with my clothes
6) Soft bananas – fewer eatables are more disgusting than ‘gone soft’ bananas with those squishy black marks .. yechhhhh!
7) ‘sms barrage’ : I usually have sms sending attacks – these are bursts of 15 mins when I send sms’s to frends and folks – some long due, some random.. just feel the need to communicate. Never really understood this.. just happens. Whether its on the way to airports, or while walking home, or just some time in office.


I cant remember any others.. can you?

oh btw.. tagging ganji, faiz, sleazy, mak (this ought to be good hehe!)

atoning for my sins

A few weeks ago - i felt the gnawing sensation that I have begun to associate with my craving for blogging.. and thru the ensuing hectic weeks it receded to a dull pain somewhere - constantly reminding me that i needed an outlet..

anyway, here I am, back to living my very erratic online existence (yes Bharat, erratic with an 'a' is also a word).. just that I dont know where to start from..

Pauline once told me that you should not change > 2 major things in life at the same time.. and I think I may have done 1 too many.. so here go the big changes..

a) Spunky is here .. finally - after more than two years of living away from each other, we've landed up in not just the same city - but the same company too! I warned her about the latter.. but u know the young of today..

Ive got a few hundred questions about how it is this far, and my answer remains the same.. i dont know! it still feels like a holiday and we really dont know how couples who live in the same city feel like.. talk about getting used to long distance relationships!

b) We've moved to a new house.. still not gotten over the loss of the simply awesome elmira heights.. a overall downgrade in the face of fast rising rental rates, but still pretty decent. The best thing about this place is the convenience, its right at the office junction which reduces my need to travel to a max of 500 m.

The huge downside is the state at which the house is right now, paint peeling off, leaky bath tubs, 15 inch tv, doors that scare you with thier creaking and need to shut by themselves.

c) Ive changed roles.. From a time where i worked with a team of 10 non-indians to now where I have only Indians to work with. And boy! is it different .. almost like a flip or whats imp and whats not..

The role is fantastic, so are the people.. and oh! i still have to do the crappy work, but still, its no Herbal Essences Australia..

anyway, a combination of all of this has me gasping for breath - taking its toll of items such as blogging etc etc..

feels good to be back.. cheers!

was itching to write something!

the last 1 month has just flown by .. for one, have been a nomad of sorts, living in vishys house for a week and then organised some fraud trip for a week and then shanks/sameers house for 2 more.. and fairly unexpectedly , have learnt a few things.. the joys and fears of staying alone, living the life of a 18hr work process and still enjoying it.. just a cpl of the various things i got to pick up ..

Will write about that in detail later.. right now i need to go live my 18 hr happy work day :)

cheers!

:(

18 days now since i did any worthwhile excercise (not counting the number of times ive gone up and down vishys stairs - i dont knoe how ppl live in duplex apartments)

the sad thing is that the best excuse i could offer myself (and trust me - im pretty good at deluding myself) was that (a) there was no company to play and (b) my shoes were packed away somewhere.. no other reason.. work was ok .. not much travel (maybe 4/5 of the 18 days).

the sadder thing is, im getting comfortable with the idea of feeling unfit :(( some1 drag me out to play something this weekend please!!

I call my last 15 hours a little bit of a Spanish craze phase.. with U -tube vdos about spanish music, their dance forms and even about the food.. suddenly, bengali seems to be losing its place as the most charming language..

anyway, it all started with last evenings as we landed up in the 'cuban libre' a new pub at ClarkQuay - when we got there i was grumbling about how I had to contend with another foreign language (still grappling with my issues with English).. but to my complete surprise, last night was an awesome experience..

for one, the spanish singer - she was awesome looking.. and when she sang in her semi-husky voice it didnt matter what she sang.. and maybe its just the charm of an un-understoon language but the lyrics just seemed to add to it all - the entire song was one full sensual wave..

and that was just the singer and the band, the cool part was yet to come.. the couples on the floor dancing.. wow.. what grace and what movement.. none very good looking and mostly middle aged but they made us feel so inadequate that I cannot articulate it well enough.. u know the kind that makes you feel like going a couple of years back and reliving it with a cpl of changes (like salsa lessons etc)..

of course, the entire feeling may have been accentuated due to the spirit in my bloodstream, but its completely worth it..

So now, the Europe back trip looks more and more likely - with a long stopover in spain :) .. who all in?

Some time last week, I decided to stop blogging as my roommate and spunky (both being diff people) hinted ever so slightly (or maybe quite blatantly) at my footage-hungriness (is that a word?) and all that.. so I lay low and despite wanting to blog about something last week, i controlled myself...

then i happened to chance upon mainaks blog/website and then clicked on a few connections and finally read an article by a software engg. in Infy chennai on why he blogs.. it was awesome.. and though I wasnt smart enough to keep the link remember a couple of points.. 'Helps me communicate to people things that I wouldnt really have done either because a) its a different side of my character that they have not seen earlier b) its stuff that i dont feel confident about talking in public and c) i simply dont have the context to talk this with my frends in a day to day life scenario... and then he goes on about how he encourages all his frends to read it to get a more 360 degree view of who he is..

so , nett, blogging is back.. cos i have self justified its importance :p

why we blog

Sitting in the IKs place (thats intellectual keedas for those who dont know - its called 11-02 dunearn gardens) - and we suddenly came upon 'why do people blog?' - for those who have a good answer, please tell me what to say - cos all i did was look at them and say a meek 'just like that' - perhaps cos I had a feeling that they would pin down the hapless blogger world on the table and disect it to bits before they came up with a satisfactory answer - a heavy round of of IM revealed several key hypotheses - including 'unleashing the hidden side of ur personality' to ' cowards who cant say shit - so write shit' - admittably most of this was after a strong influence of alcohol and so wont really write about the the last few hypotheses - even Nayak (who we consider to be the one with the mind in the gutter) would have struggled to come up with it ..

so then - me (in the minimal thinking capacity i have) started wondering - why am i here anyway - and as usual im confused..

marketing lessons

Finally, I've taken the hard call to separate out my blogs - now my cricket posts (which people allege are pretty much all my posts) will move to http:\\cricketatpng.blogspot.com - all in the spirit of a consumer centric world :) - i've also promised that i will squeeze my life harder to extract something to write something or the other in the absence of a happening life ..

As they say .. lesson 101 - if your TAs want 2 diff things, u need to offer diff propositions!

Of course, whether Im spreading myself too thin - only time will tell! till then - come visit both the sites.. the link is always here.. cheers!

loo-natics i tell ya

outright - this post is prolly more relevant to guys - or at least i cant think of how a woman may have gone thru such an experience.. but feel free to read thru and tell me if it does (one learns new things everyday!)

It first noticed it when I started working, fundamentally there are two kinds of guys - based on guess what: the way they act in a public (or office ) bathroom - especially while at the pot... now before u judge me - read thru it!

a) Type A will come in and quietly do his thing and leave - maybe a quick nod of acknowledgement if he sees some1 he knows.. most of the actual down time is spent staring hard at the wall in front, as if mentally wrestling some complex differential equation inscribed on it..

b) Type B has probably been working too hard all day - and mistakes this to be similar to a coffee/ciggy break - they look for ppl they know in there and often even go into the loo in a pair.. standing there is not a reason to stop talking and maintaining eye contact is an added bonus..

Anyway, these two live in perfect harmony - till the point where Type B sees Type A one day - and then starts off a discussion.. poor A, visibly squirms, trying to decide between solving the equation on the wall ahead or look back at type B, finally settling in between, making it all the more obscene and uncomfortable.. talk about captive audience..

The other really bad situation you could get into is when u are there doing the wall equation solving thing - and suddenly u are flanked on either side by two type B people who are in the middle of the conversation.. Try as much as u want - but there is nothing u can do - they will both be looking straight at u as they talk - the slight sway/bend back isnt much better either ! :) - now thats what i call being caught in a cross-fire!

so from all of the type As in the world to all u type Bs - do not judge us by our lack of communication in the loo, we are much more the talking type - just in slightly better situations/places! and for heavens sake - just take more coffee breaks!

the sweeeeeeeet taste of success

I may be rejoicing (?? i meant herbal-ing) too soon, but looks like we've found an apartment! ye ye!!! :)

Rupee and vidz moving out - so we may be taking their place - frightfully expensive but chalo something is better than nothing...

phew! wont have to live at the airport or the office now.. thank god!

Woes of an underpaid marketer in Singapore

First and foremost.. YES! this is a crib post - an outlet for the bottled up frustration - especially cos i have no one to blame.. but the supply demand gap for good condos on rent...

Anyways, it all started off 2.5 years back when i did my little calculation of how much id save if I lived in Singapore with my marketing salary - it wasnt bad at all - around 1.5 times of a normal Indian salary living in India.. and that made up my mind about taking up this job...

For the first year or some, things were rosy.. Elmira Heights was the perfect place to live (close to office, town, friends and sports ) - and to boot wasnt very expensive at all... allowed for a very very comfortable lifestyle.. and then i got ahead of myself..

In a moment of weakness, I decided to invest in a systematic investment plan that makes it compulsory to invest some money every month.. dont remember if i was drunk or just plain dumb (more likely a combination of both) - but here I was saddled with a monthly commitment..

And then .. just like that, the bottom gave way - and the axe fell - not in one, but two painful blows:

- The company wants us to become PRs - for those who dont know what it means - its basically a cut of 33% in ur salary that goes to the govt fund (and u get a measly 2-3% interest on it)

- The rents have gone up MASSSIVELY - from a reasonable 2200 sgd to somewhere in the region of 3500 sgd - makes u wonder if you living in downtown NY.. not that i know what that is like..

An example of how bad it is
Assume that a new hire gets 4.5 K - and work the numbers..
- In hand post PR stuff is nearly 3K
- take away rent and very basic living expenses and u have like 1 K left
- u blink and thats at risk and dont even dream of going for a vacation .. lets not get towards repayment of education loans and u risk getting mugged if u can spell 'investments'.. bah!

Im hoping some1 in HR is tracking all of this and is exhibiting some nimble footed 'in-touchness' and will increase salaries significantly - otherwise id be surprised if we dont see a mass exodus from the company..

And of course, my depression has nothing to do with the fact that we lost this weekend (cricket of course!) and i got a massive duck :(

a non-cricket blogentry - a slacker day

Ive said before - there isnt much to talk about in my life nowadays except cricket.. but a certain person has strongly 'advised' me that I need to write more non-cricket stuff or risk sleeping on a couch forever.. so here goes..

Todays day was spent like a sack of potatoes for most part of the day .. sat on the couch doing nothing at all .. pretended to work while distantly aware of the happenings on the tv.. pretended to attend two/three telecons.. and mumbled a few words there to make it sound authentic.. and basically surfed the net.. for no specific thing.. just random - site to site jumping.. blog reading.. it really is a good way to spend time u know..

one thing i came across was a poem by Rabindranath Tagore (yeah bring on the Bong jokes) - called 'Where the mind is without fear' - one of my fav pcs of poetry ... a poem that you keep discovering.. every line has layers of meaning which u need to peel off .. and they all link back to the one theme of the poem.. truly inspiring poem.. for the very few who havent read it before.. here goes..

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

:)

another of those days..

One of those days... gloomy weather outside.. insides groaning and complaining.. work seems like the most distant priority.. people come around asking for stuff and you feel like just answering 'I dont know and I dont care!' :p

but a silver lining exists, even on this dark grey cloud.. the mid week holiday.. the oasis in the middle of the sahara.. i honestly believe that every week should have at least mid week break .. just to help you recover from the wear and tear that office brings..

and of course, there is Friday after that.. and sports again.. come to think of it .. today is almost like a Friday.. should make some harrys plans and some dinnering and all that :)

alright - the days not that bad after all then - of course.. to dampen the spirits.. small matters of work are still there.. sigh!

so.. back to strategic stuff.. setting up meetings, process invoices, print stuff out, write agendas for meetings.. vidyar - we need to start the 'united abm blogger' soon!

more strategies!

The spring is there in our step, and we are clearly on a high (as my previous post may tell u) - but as some smart guy said, the only way after uve reached the crescendo is a steep steep drop.. other smart guys have called it the law of averages - but what i call it is a) complacency and b) not embracing change...

Despite being the best team around - I think we have a couple of big gaps - couple that with a few changes (of playing conditions/Grounds) and we may actually have a problem.. the key changes this coming week are
a) We are playing at GIIS Queensland - a much smaller ground
b) The opposition would def have heard about Bakir and Matt and would plan for that

This is my take on how we should tackle each of the issues :

a) Playing at the smaller ground

• Means that a 200 may be enough - need to bat faster - id revise all of Paddus targets upwards by 20%.
• Need some1 upfront who can play well square (pulls/cuts) - to me the ideal guy here is Sriram
• Singles are going to be rare so the disadvantages of running slow dont count much :p - so let Ganji open
• If an opener falls early - get Esh in and if neccessary even Swapnil and hold for the first 6-8 overs..
• I wont bowl myself too much unless really needed - even the top edges fly for 6 here... but always willing to give it a try :)

b) Competition knowing about Bakir/Matt

• Could keep thier best bowlers back
• which means we need to maximise the new ball bowlers and get some1 up there who can hit!

So my proposed batting line-up is :

1. Ganji
2. Sriram
3. Paddu/Raff
4. Bakir
5. Matt
6. Tapish
7. Raff/Paddu
8. Shiv
9. Swapnil
10. Esh
11. Goel

If wickets fall fast - then Esh and Swapnil go upfront..

An interesting option will be sending Swapnil up instead of Ganji and asking him to go for it.. or maybe asking nitin goel to do that :)

Bowling:

Bakir, Nitin, Tapish, Paddu, Swappy, Matt, Shiv (in order of priority)

Separately, for the friendly against KB, this is my proposed line-up

1. Raff
2. Tapish
3. Paddu
4. Bakir
5. Shiv
6. Sriram
7. Swappy
8. Manish
9. Esh
10. Nitin Goel
11. Ganji

Just to mix things up a bit :)

cricket continues

For those who dont like cricket (read spunky, oli and a few other such loser kinds) .. apologies .. there hasnt been too much action in my life but for the cricket matches on weekends and during the week, a constant to-and-fro of discussions around strategy, analysis, chest thumping or plain bitching..

In normal circumstances, this would be a fairly poor reflection of the kind of excitement in my life (the lack of which is a completely different story which i shall leave for a less joyous time).. but for this one time, its purely behind a complete upliftment of the spirit of the team - suddenly u can sense it - there is a sort of nervous passion in the air as emails float around, the Srirams of the world are deeply introspecting on a freak dismissal, Esh is raring to go at the bowlers again and even the iceman polska is betraying some emotion! (not yet to a level to getting ganji into wanting to run fast singles tho - now that will take something!)

This season feels like a piece of Yanni music - (refer to the Optimistique album) - starts of slow and low and then builds up tempo and style.. and just when u think its going to taper off, he takes the next higher note, till u are amongst notes u didnt know about.. so thats what happened on saturday - just when u thot that the last match was an awesome allround display - this one completely smashed that out ..

Bakir and Matt were the stars of the day - they came, they looked around with utter disdain, helped themselves to a quick pile of runs like kids in a unattended candy store and then were in the process of stomping out the last bit of self esteem the opposition had before guilt struck home and they let the poor wet mice go..

It wasnt just the runs, it wasnt the sweetly caressed shots interspersed with savage blows, it was they elegance that they commanded while they were there thay was awe inspiring.. Matt looked like he could score that fifty again on one leg, one arm tied down and with a blindfold.. Bakir - what should i say!

Anyway - the bowling wasnt as rosy as this - key highlights for me were a) Swapnil bowling with a lot more control and lower pace b) Matts outstanding bowling c) now always expected - a 5 wicket haul from Bakir and d) a significant improvement in my bowling vs last time..

Our ground fielding sucked a little, as did our catching - we dropped a good number of catches - somethign we really need to fix, if we want to keep up the good work...

As we move towards the next match - they key question is - is there a higher note, or have we reached the crescendo! - who cares! as of now - i can feel the music in my ears!

Cricket ramblings continue..

Realised that I didnt pay tribute to Nitin (Not u ganji - i mean Goel) - in my last post.. or to Swapnil.. Both fighters to the core - have been invaluable to the team.. and of course there is Esh who has bled for the team ;)

Anyway - this is not about being good to people.. this post is about my take on the strategy - and my attempt to influence team management...

I may trash some people and thier abilities here - but no hard feelings guys - u know how capitalistic worlds are run :p - but seriously - please dont get senti :)

First, Whats working? (pls note how i placed 'whats working' first - in the spirit of positive thinking :p)

a) Our bowling absolutely rocks (apart from the spin bowler who just plain sucks! and that we dont have a back up for Tapish - come on Bharat/Raff!)

b) Our middle order - Whether its the cool killer tapish, Solid Bakir, Paddu or the substitute middle order batsmen (Bharat, Lal etc) - we always look our best when these guys are in the middle.. singles come easy - the occasional four looks effortless - over the last 6-7 matches - this is usually a phase for 10-15 overs of the match - typically 8-23th over ..

c) No dropped catches yet - and ganjis slip catching nothwitstanding (actually even he got a runout :p) we've been a pretty neat side.. till now at least :)

Whats not working?

a) Our average score is lower than it should be - we should have hit the mediocre sides for at least 200 in each match

b) Our starts are slower than they could be (with restrictions and all that)

c) In the last few overs, the lower order isnt able to accelerate properly, either losing the wickets too fast in a frenzy to go out there and smash the first ball for four or six (read: Raff, Shiv and Paddu are going in too late :p)

My ideas on further improving an already excellent team. Pretty much all of it revolves around being flexible and not planning a batting order in terms of who goes after whom but thinking of who should go at what stage of the innings

So - this is how I believe we should structure our team - comments obviously invited :)

Core middle batsmen : Bakir, Tapish, Paddu, Matt, Bharat - these guys should ideally be there by the 10th over and one of these guys should play on till the end.. Send them at whatever situation they will score at a run a ball - only issue is that we have only 2/3 of this kind and so they shouldnt take too many chances

Single pickers: Lal, Swapnil, Manish, Venkat (?) - these guys should play around the core batsmen - these are our gritty batsmen, who can either stay there while the bowling going well and can rotate the strike and give the core batsmen more strike.. the occasional boundary is a sweet bonus.. :)

Slammers: Raff, Shiv, Nitin Goel - This is the bunch that flinches everytime some1 defends a ball pitched up - and Raff even goes to watch other games cos he thinks esh and Ganji are batting slowly.. Ideally if they play 4/5 overs in the middle - those will give almost 50 runs, now whether u want it in the early part (fielding restriction time), or around the 15th over to speed things up a bit or later in the 24th over onwards - thats completely the captains call but its a shame to have hard hitters sitting in the pavilion till the 27th over and then they need to go slam from ball 1 .. One more thing .. if they are slammers - no point asking them to bat like opening batsmen in the nets - let them have a go.. in the nets too :)

Opening Defenders: Esh, Ganji, Sriram - Sriram can pretty much play in any of the roles we talked about - so lets talk about what the blunters need to do .. Esh and Ganji need to ensure that for the first 5 overs we dont lose a wicket - not too differently from the last match - a little more single taking may help - and a few more of ganjis sweetly timed shots on the legside may actually help us forget the last 2 seasons :p

So nett, keep each of these groups ready depending on the situation of the match..

Anyway - thats the opinion from the bottom of the pyramid - im sure the the view from up there will be a little different..

but on a separate note : here is to Paddu - the glue that holds the splinters together.. Take away his brilliant cricket skills and mind, take away his enthu that lifts the team up or his super-gentlemanly conduct and ull still be left with his ever smiling self (despite pain, tiredness or plain irritation)

(if that doesnt get us up the order raff, nothing will!)

anyway - time to get back to work - i love WFH days :)

Evolution of cricket in P&G

For those who came in late - I am part of the P&G cricket team - which true to P&G culture was the best at work life balance but thats pretty much where it all ended.. nets was an unheard of concept and playing a match with 11 was as real as getting incremental money at the end of the fiscal.. notables on this team included Sriram 'blast from the past' , manish 'got married and disappeared' Chaudhury and Nitin 'runs as fast as he walks' Gajria and me ..

Every match was a combination of a) a flawless execution of a middle order collapse b) a bowling line-up that was determined to help the opposing batsmen get a few runs (some1 needs to do that right!) and c) incessant intellectualisation on what worked and what not after that match - all fairly unactionable stuff..

In between, we went a step better - we joined Kaybee - a team that was as splintered as ours, Ganji loved the guys who played there - with a seasons cumulative score of less than the number of Km from Newton to Novena - id think he had good enough reason to be pissed off when he wass dropped from the team ;) - but the external perspective while playing for these guys was helpful.. we realised others sucked just as bad - and Sriram took the leap of faith saying 'P&G will field its own team this year'..

And when u could just hear the laughter dying out (as a reaction to Srirams statement) - we saw the advent of a new generation of cricketers in P&G - Bakir 'demolition man' Shaikh, Paddu 'Nazi captain', Tapish - the ice cool killer, Raffy - the diversity quota (hehe - actually the Gilchrist) and Bharat 'currently limping ' V. ..

More about what happened to this team - in my next post..

The vishu saga

Vishys undeniable raw tam-bram studd farm appeal continues to bowl over the women.. the latest being the interns party that was hosted last night..

Its no surprise that this was the only bright thing about the party - given the other parts of the night were doing one of 4 things :

a) Lifting daaku off some1/thing as he fell over in yet another drunken stupor.. and watching vishy as he muttered incomprehensible abuses under his breath.

b) Taking our own case, and intermittently shouting 'Rule 2', 'Rule 2' (For those who came in late - Rule 2 = 'dont take our own case while ragging is going on')

c) Shouts of 'North zone', 'South Zone', 'East zone' and random cheering behind that every time some1 mentioned where he was from... proudly (And much to aparnas chagrin) led by Dobby as he cheered for the 'Aamar shonar bangla, bihar, assam and orissa' and equally ineptly led by the considerably drunk Nerdy who was leading the illad brigade (dont crucify me guys :p)..

d) Random bhasad cheering for IIMA, B, C - and a semi whimper for L, FMS and NUS. :)


Back to the highlight, Vishu was clearly the centre of the night - whether it be his Salsa dance with Anupama (which he thought no one noticed:p), Being lovingly called 'vishu' by only tam bram girl there (resulting in suspicious green smoke around olis ears) , consistently being in the top 2 guys in the room when the women were asked to the extent where there were two women who were willing to arm wrestle (in the absence of mud :p) just to get a chance to dance with their 'Vishu'.. Cheers man - uve got then eating out of ur hand havent u - with Nayak out of the race under super PML considerations (PML = pyaar mein lulla for those who came in late), this leaves Vishy with a clear path - like chritiano ronaldo with only the keeper to beat.. :p

anyway - just hope this post didnt make u think that the party was fun.. it was a damp squib if there was ever one - over drunk people, mostly boring (read uncooperative) interns, lack of the nayak, not very involved senior junta - pchaa - lets just move on to the rest of the weekend ...

simple and powerful!

Check out the excerpt below - my new MD gave this to me in our first 1:1 meeting last month. Now I am as big a cynic (and probably bigger than) as most of you reading this .. but something about these simple 5 lines caught me - as I thought a little about this - the strength of these points really drove home..

___________________________________________________________________
Beliefs that drive my behavior:

1) Build an organisation - the volumes/Business will follow:

• You cant succeed if your people dont
• Find a mission and culture to rally around
• Create legacies, not assignment histories

2) Lead, Follow or get out of the way - DONT WHINE:

• You are an entrepreneur, not a consultant - act, dont just give advice
• Dont bitch about ur brand team - if you dont believe who will?
• All teams need cheerleaders - and it starts with us

3) Win externally, dont swirl internally

• If it doesnt build cases or equity, dont do it
• Dress up the store, not the office
• Business should drive processes, not the other way around

4) Business can be much simpler than we make it

• Win with few big ideas rather than with small scattered ideas
• Buzz words come and go - fundamentals are forever
• Focus on the action - not the jargon
• Cut the swirl - elevate to the decision maker

5) Be ready to quit everyday without regrets

• Have passions other than, and more lasting than work
• Do whats right for the business and my people, forget 'agendas', 'promotion timings'

_________________________________________________________________

Do post a comment if you didnt understand something - and ill put it in a non-P&G way :p

Desis - where do we stand vs. the rest

Over the last 2 odd years - ive spent inordinate amounts of time working with a completely diverse A-Pac team - an Aussie, a Thai, a New Zealander, an Indonesian, a Chinese, a Singaporean, a frenchman and a Filipino. While i run the risk of being completely unidimensional in my analysis of each of these races, ill go ahead anyway.. just dont quote me anywhere :p

Dont know about u guys, but before I came here - I thought of SEA as pretty much homogeneous set of people of asian descent.. and Ironically, I spent all of Friday morning getting the data to prove to management that each ASEAN market needed a different kind of marketing because they were different people!

Anyway - back to the topic: Remember, this is a comparision of the mid tertile of people rather than a comparision of the top people from each race (top people are the best - no matter where they come from )

What are we good at :

a) Ability to put fight - call it the boon of a competitive education system, or call it the bane of not having our priorities right - but Indians have the ability to really live with their foot on the pedal ..

b) Adapting to an environment: Most of us are adapters by nature - brings to mind that Undy ad which goes 'zindagi mein bahut kuch adjust karna padta hai', all of us are just children of a system that teaches us to take whatever is doled out to us - nett, we are survivors, clinging on to in an ever changing environment

c) Thinking ability : A controversial one.. but in my time at P&G, ive found that most Indians are good thinkers - not just math, but overall their ability to think through a situation and a problem. It could be just the crosssection of people in P&G but Indians do seem pretty strategic.. u know what i mean?

what sets us back:

a) Menial is bad, strategy is good: Coming from a culture where menial is bad (starting as early as the caste system) and thinkers are great, its no surprise that we look down at routine boring things, and prefer to do a 'strategy' project to 'implementation', prefer 'brand management' to 'sales'..

b) Operating with discipline: not so much on an absolute scale as on a comparative one vs other nationalities - Indians lag behind on this one by a long long way - repetitive detail oriented things are just not our cup of tea - u can either fight hard to imbibe it - or recognise (like i did) that there is no hope and i need to duck everytime something like this comes along..

c) A wide perspective: Given that 90% of us have never seen anyplace out of India and have never met non Indians, its but natural that we are untouched by the concept of global perspective.. whether it be Indo-Paki issues, or a west vs East story or even caring about the difference between Thailand/indo/mal/Vietnam - nett, as long as it doesnt affect me i dont have to know it!

d) A thirst for information: Again, this may be skewed due to the cross section ive met, but Indians usually arent actively trying to learn about new things/cultures.. Especially if you compare this with Aussies, you see that they are extremely well informed - whether it be local politics, international issues, laws and regulations and even health related stuff.. you really need to be in the midst of a transfat, good fat, bad fat kind of conversation to realise that these guys spend a lot of time really understanding things that affect their life..

e) Qualitative is Global: Probably the biggest, especially in a engg/MBA context, if you dont have numbers in the statement u made, you are obviously a fraud and 'global'.. If there is one thing id like to go back and change in our Indian MBA mentality, it would be this - It is the biggest bane of our education system - something that is the single most important factor that pushes our EQs all the way down to the futuristic ones we will use for robots..

I had a few more, but in fear of sounding like a indian basher, i shall stop here :)

Jai hind!

life stage changes - i hate em :(

the other day I was browsing through Samchos blog (senior of mine from IIMB - gem of a guy!) - and came acrossa paragraph where he recommends a small excercise.. remember the time of your life when you have been very happy.. and look at the people around u then.. and now think of how many of those you've spoken to in the last week, maybe even a year..

i know i know - nothing nobel leaureatish about that - nothing that even a BCom couldnt figure out... but try it - it can throw up a few really interesting things..

For those of you who have been waiting with bated breaths for my example.. here goes.. I actually thought of two/three diff ones and in the interest of political correctness (the bane of a public blog where ur gf reads ur articles ;) ill mention the relevant one..

In room 34, Cauvery block (1st year hostel in RV College of Engg) - All of us sitting in the room, discussing Kamus birthday and feeling guilty at wat happened at his birthday celebrations: with good reason i may add - having kicked him in the most unmentionable places, having smashed an egg or two on his head and the star: ponks pouring a can of rassagulla syrup on him. Raja is proposing that we buy him a cake and despite Sandy the farmer and Chippar Ghosh's vehement protests at having to spend an additional 10 bucks, Gopi the 'daadu' calls it out that we will do as raja says.. As usual, 10 people end up sleeping on 3 beds cos no one wants to leave and go to his room lest he misses out on some fun!

That brings me to our gang during Engg - the ten of us + the girls (R2, Suki, Dra, Eex, Du) . The girls are an integreal part of the gang - but being a hostel buddy is somethign else.. honestly! Ive been putting off a post dedicated to each of these folks but will do it soon .. lots of dirt there :p

Anyway - back to the point of the blog - once I got to thinking about the gang and the times we've had, to the nostalgic point of picking up the phone to call some of them on full charge ISD, I decided to stock of where my relationship stood with respect to each of these guys... one by one, deliberately... almost unhealthily clinically :(

The reality wasnt that tough to figure out - I was in regular touch with 3- maybe 4 of these people... Id no clue what was happening to almost half of the people who are part of the happiest times of my life..

From a time where we discussed, argued and fought over what colour of jeans should one buy to a point where i was told by a stranger that one of these guys is getting married .. from a time where one person having something to do in the city meant that all of us went with him, to a time where 3/10 attend a wedding.. the heart starts to sink at the mere thought of the level of degradement..

Dont get me wrong, its not that we are all not frends anymore - I know that today also - I can bank on most of these guys to stand by me - come whatever (and id do the same - no matter wat) - but everyone seems to have moved on.. onto other things that matter just as much as this... or more.. in fact 'more' is probably more accurate... i believe the term they use is 'life stage'..

Which brings me to the official announcement of the fact that I hate lifestage changes, the evil force that tugs at threads of past relationships trying hard to make it rip - that causes close people to move on - that causes ponks to come to singapore with his wife and stilll not want to meet up .. that causes Rohit and Gopi to stay thousands of kilometres away in a context that i dont understand.. that changes your expectation of strong frendships to a sick point where you almost expect that a frend who has moved out of the immediate vicinity of your life is probably a lost cause..

Save me the speil of the good things that come with lifestage movements - i know it - but that doesnt stop me from cribbing over the fact that Im not eating dinner with the BAAGS tonight (For those who came in late : BAAGS = bhatti, anirudh, ashwin, gopi, shiv hehe)..

Netaji Subhash bose 'international' airport!

This post is dedicated to the inefficiency at the much celebrated Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International airport .. The airport is named after perhaps the most disciplined and organised of the Indian freedom fighters - but clearly they didnt think beyond the naming.

For those who dont know what this is - its the Kolkata international airport.. not really an airport by itself - essentially an extra door to the right of the domestic terminal that leads to the same runway..

When u first enter - the entire place looks completely empty apart from the people who lurk around smoking a bidi and offering to push ur trolley for 20 bucks.. and then when u approach the twenty odd counters to check in - you realise that they are operating only one counter.. and for some vague reason - there are 6 people peering over the shoulder of some poor new hire who is struggling to figure out what a boarding pass is.

On closer inspection, you notice that the state of the art computers are put to great use - as tea cup holders, filing cabinets and in some places as seats as well - and given that their systems were already overloaded with other things - they had to declare it as a "manual check in" day - which meant that the wait increased from 1 hr to 2.

10 mins before take-off time, I get to the counter and ask for an upgrade to business class (am willing to pay the extra amount of course!) - and am given 6 reasons why business is not worth it - 'sir, the service is the same', 'sir, this is all marketing tactics, sir' , 'sir, the food service today isnt that good' blah blah... man - some1 from SIA should have been there...

finally, it turns out that they had already printed a boarding pass for every1 and so would need to give me another one (which would need one of them to walk 100 m to the closest stack of empty ones..)

thankfully nothing else happened and we took off only 30 mins from planned departure - of course after being forced to fly economy and took 4 security checks of my laptop...

Nett of all, not a very fun experience - something Buddhadev should seriously think - before we starting to tout ourselves as the next big destination - for business and leisure.. giving land to Tata motors and creating SEZs for s/w companies isnt everything ..

ps. No one dare make a sarcy bong commment, or even communist ones.. hmmpf!

if you read my blog

ppls - i know im erratic in updating my blog - if you want u can leave ur email id (as a comment or on mail to shivchoudhury@gmail.com) and ill email u everytime i update it

more attempts to add value as a blogger :p

cheerios!

A thought provoker - Namesake..

dont know how many of you have seen 'the namesake' - its one of the more thought provoking movies ive seen lately .. which to me automatically classifies a serious movie as good..

The plot overall is pretty simple - and meaningful.. and in patches very relevant to me .. whether it is the guy who goes abroad to work leaving family and frends abroad, to having a partner who doesnt want to leave her country.. to the guy who goes through the cycle of being indifferent to his roots to finally realising that it is in-separable from him..

From a story and direction pov, rarely have I seen any movie give that much space for the granular characterisation of as many as 3 characters - Irfan, Tabu and Kal.. each ones character is sculpted out right through the movie.. and the best thing is none of these were simple 1D views, the characterisation was done in multiple lights... A quick para on each of the characters follows:

Ashima: Tabu turned in a good performance - playing the to-be-wed bengali next door girl with as much grace and elan as the mom of two who has lost everything in life the day her husband died ... i like the way her maturity visibly progresses with the movie and ends with her courageous decision to go back to India :)

What did her character make me think :
- Importance of conditioning and influence: Look at the difference in her reaction to her dads death and then to her husbands.. and how it showed Ashokes influence on her when he says 'uve got to be strong - for ur family and kids...' - she really displays that in the end when Ashoke passes away
- Compromises work - to a degree: Her move to the US was a compromise of sorts - but it worked in the long term.
- One day ill get a chance to do what i really want :) - she got to sing in the end didnt she? one day i will be the manager of the Man U :)

Ashoke: My fav character of the movie.. serious, caring and a thinker - i loved the scene where he comes to gogols room and tells him.. 'one day ull realise - we are all from Gogols overcoat'. In the scene when he calls Ashima from cleaveland - I found myself praying that he doesnt die after that - truly powerful acting to create a really strong link with the viewer..

Key thoughts from his character:
- Gratitude/Rememberance of where it all started from: ive never really thought of what was the turning point in my academic/professional life - and it would be amazing to know and recognise that - just as Ashoke does about the book 'gogol' and that train journey
- Simple is good : self explanatory i think :)

Gogol: Brilliant acting here i think - especially in the transition from ABCD gogol to some1 who understood his roots..and more importantly was comfy with it.. The transformation at his dads funderal is a classic one i think .. in one stroke pulling him from a world of holidaying with his GFs family to his own grieving family ..

Key thoughts from his character:
- Roots are called roots for a reason: blood runs thicker than water :)
- My state of misery cannot be an excuse to hurt some1 else: The way he treated his amrikkan gf was pretty sad - after all that she was doing to integrate in.. the unfairness of that was sidelined in the movie in the face of bigger things - but it was unfair..
- Dont ignore what u dont understand - he didnt understand gogol - and the reason behind it - till his dad told him and blah blah.. makes even more sense in the light of my conversation with spunky yesterday (conversation will not be recounted for relationship maintaining reasons :p)

anyways.. enough bakwaas about the movie.. last thing - loved the authentic bengali accents and not the exagerated crappy ones in a million other movies..

tam brams - UGLY

They say that about sardars (within India) and about Indians (outside of India) - but i think it applies much more to a certain tribe called the 'Tam-brams' .. 'You can go to any part of the world but u cant be too far away from one of them' [ Well thats actually a censored down version: the actual one is - 'Indians are like roaches - u can kill as many as u can and there will still be some around - no matter where u are' .. dont judge me - im just passing on what people say about us, if it hurts ur sensibilities - please ignore the bit in parantheses :p]

Upfront, this is the story of the typical tam ive met - its a LCM vs a HCF (if u know what i mean).. so if ur tam and realise that you dont have all the below mentioned characteristics, dont rush to the closest balcony or well.. its all right, no one is ever a perfect tam-bram, just keep working towards it.. ull get there soon - and then u can evolve into a human being..slowly


Anyways, I'll start off with how to identify this curious set of people.. In India (for the fictitious non-indians reading my blog), these kinds are identified having these characteristics:
- Oil drippers: you can see oil flowing down from their heads (an entire blog can be dedicated to the grossness of oil that is streaming down the back of the neck after a 'head bath') - this is said to be the main reason why the oil prices are where they are today!
- Tikka: Not to be confused with heavenly chikkkan/paneer tikkas, this refers to the sacred grey ash on thier head (a minor variant of the term 'black ass' as used by our afro american frends).. there are fashion variants amongst these too - the 3 X horizontal line - a testament to the holy trinity (not the Matrix waali!) a complete 'out there' statement ..then there is the other variant - casual and understated - just a careless blob - torn between fitting with the rest of the world and keeping in touch with ur tambram roots.
- Checked shirt, trouser and leather chappal: Well cant really say - this could be characteristic of a bihari also - so will not talk much about this.
- Eating joints: Completely vegetarian, preferably only South Indian food (Udipi restaurants)
- Conversation topics: Couldnt understand most of these, not cos they were in Tam, but cos they were highly maggu nerdy MS/Phd level stuff :p

In Singapore, they are found eating at Sarvana Bhawan and LN (lakshmi Narsimhan) - the appearances are changed so as to not be deported back - but innately they are still the same...

Others:
- Bathing: Typical tam-brams take 45 mins to bathe - the process is long winded and complicated , involving several mins of standing there under the shower ignoring people outside banging on the door cos u are delaying them. They also need to bathe everytime u step out of the house - lest they be ostracized from society

- Rajnikanth: Just when you had decided that this was a bunch of sedentary boring people, u see the crazy following for Rajnikanth - there are hazaar jokes on this topic on the web - please read them for more info..

anyway - nayak has promised to give me inputs on this one, so this is just a draft.. will come back with more info on this.. (see how tough it is to write a blog! need to research and all too)

Also, Interesting fact-byte : Tam brams constitute only 2-3% of the total TN population -which is very weird cos ive never met a non-bram tam!

The oil crisis

okay - this is not a normal blog - its a cry of distress, an appeal for help - in anyway possible (money is preferred, but words of sympathy will also do for now)..

This is the story of the hair drippers.. Nayak and Bharat.. Nayak more than Bharat.. Our man Nayak isnt called the 'Blurr' for nothing.. his speed on the football field is matched only by his speed of hairloss...(they say send nayak to the amazonian rain forests and he will make the sahara out of it..).. So Nayak in the interest of Shahana not having to marry a bald guy, decides that he needs to step up his hair care regime..

Now a normal person would do a lot of research and then finally choose from several of the Shampoos, conditioners, treatments blah blah or even go to specialist clinics, but our man decided by a combination of intuition & plain stupidity that he needed to step up his 'hair oil' regime.. So now.. instead of the once a week that ud see him with hair oil all over his glistening (and rather large) forehead, we get to see him almost 3 times a week... rivulets of oil down the back of his neck and down the sides of face... as if he stood under the shower and it rained oil on him.. and thats just the way it looks, the smell is like you took a rotten egg, and sprayed it with tons of Jovan Musk in an attempt to make it smell good - but completely failed at it..

And now imagine.. having to sleep in the same room as a person wearing this! and as Bharat just told me imagine going outside like this - Nayak supposedly went to office like this one day .. ewww..

Talking of Bharat, here is a closet dripper.. he oils his hair 4 days a week but does it in the confines of his room after all have slept and washes it off next morning 1st thing.. cant really complain can I - but can feel bad for Deepthi for sure ;)

So there is my problem.. need some solutions, have considered a variety of options, including throwing the bottles to killing them .. but happy to hear of any new solns..

btw.. price of petrol may come down a cpl of bucks if these guys stop oiling their hair .. so there .. now u have a reason to help me!

the futility of what i do..

I've decided that i'll have quality control on my blog ... so I'll self rate them Good, Bad,Ugly right upfront so if ur looking for good articles u wont waste time.. but since ive put the effort in writing them, ill publish them anyway...

Todays article is in the Ugly section (yeah Spunky/Nayak - bring on the puns on me being ugly..)


Anyways... here goes!

Its an old joke.. told by everyone in P&G as if it happened to them... and considering its not very funny - wonder why..

Q: What is your proffession?
A: I work for P&G in marketing (no guys.. this is not the joke!)

Q: Oh that s0unds cool! So what exactly do you do?
A: Well, umm.. thats a little tough - i do brand management..

Q: Ohh - so u make advertising?
A: Not really - the agency does that..

Q: So you must be selling the product to traders?
A: Umm no.. but i have a team of people who do that - and I lead the team..

Q: ohh - that is awesome.. so u have ppl working under you..
A: Nope..not for another 4 years!

And by this time, the P&G persons considered quitting the job...

Fine, I know the joke was lame, but makes the point..thats exactly what the work is about :)

Its always a crazy see-saw between you believing that selling Shampoo is just better than saving lives to absolute disillusionment at selling 'liquid soap' in a bottle.. and the best part is, the entire cycle happens at least once a day...

There are times when you cant help but look around and marvel at amount of passion and energy that an entire floor of people put into selling Shampoo, each believing to the core of his heart that his brand and product was what can improve a consumers life.. Its like they own the brand, and every buck they make goes into thier product.. And at the most disillusioned times it is bound to hit you - a) U dont own the business and b) U are selling liquid soap to some unseen face in some country that u dont really care about...

To be fair to the other side.. u need to go to a country like thailand where a woman spends 30% of her family income on her looks and then suddenly you start believing in the power of the liquid soap .. how a good hair day can improve productivity and confidence significantly.. and how people know beautycare products that make this difference vs. thers othats dont.. For e.g. in haircare.. the biggest driver to purchase is 'Makes me feel confident'.. and so once in a while one has to admit, the business of selling 'hope' to people isnt that bad (and sounds better than shampoo) - and if you stretch it a little bit one could say that I truly make a difference to their lives... 'Improving lives' ;)


But thats just one discussion angle on the futility of my job.. there are others.. like the fact that Im a strategiser.. not an executer.. at the most executional level, I send visuals of how things look to counterparts and they execute things instore, and while this 'macro strategic thinking' makes me feel like a mini-ceo in the making, it unfortunately means that there is absolutely no understanding of how things work on the ground when u arent looking at XL sheets and PDF documents (note how ive upgraded to pdfs and not Word docs ;)

Anyway - the stream of futility continues with this blog.. he he .. hope u dont regret reading this already ;)

request from Bharat

I think you know that you've arrived when some1 actually requests you to put somthing up on your blog and ask readers for an opinion...

So the deal is : Bharat is jealous after the strong support (read 5 people ) that my blog has recd and so he wants to up me in the one last domain of the intellectual bengali - literature... and wants to stamp his Tam-bram superiority over my race...

So now that he needs a blog.. he needs a name for it - and he obviously wont settle for below par names like 'confusedrambler'.. so need you guys to brainstorm names for him...

As usual wanting too much out of a simple name .. he wants it to include the letter B (cos of B for Bharat stupid!).. and most importantly should have a 'kinda deep meaning' (whatever that means!)

Some ideas that he has rejected (i still think pretty unfairly..) are :

- B-hold (holding ur attention)
- B-queath (ur time)
- B-itch (i love this one.. he he)

and several other unmentionables.. anyway - no point wasting time on competition.. ciao...

btw.. just realised.. this is prolly the simplest way to show that no one reads my blog .. and probably worse.. even if they do .. they dont care :p

My day : a mixed bag - with a thought provoking end..

Completely pedestrian normal day at office - the usual running around dousing fires, the same old self promises to do things earlier and in a more planned way, the same money tussles with Mote (Finance guy on our team) and volume tussles with Jonas (CMK) ...

Not having your boss around is a wonderful feeling i tell you, efficiencies automatically dip to levels that you didnt know exist :p, Its not that on a normal day Alissa would come up to me and make me do work but still, as soon as I know that my boss isnt around - the desi gorment office ka babu in me comes through.. Slow paced, lazy and completely untouched by words like timelines, deadlines, efficiency or results.

The back half of the day was decidedly cheerier and looked like it had a purpose - to get out of office at 7:00 pm and go play squash.. Despite my rotund shape and close to a quintal weight, the prospect of sport always energises me - for no real real reason now that I think about it - surely not the prospect of winning (cos I rarely win), not the prospect of thinning down (cos i never do ) and definitely not the competitive streak (which usually takes a beating)..

Anyway, after huffing and puffing to a creditable 2-1 win over a more huffy and puffy shankar, I was not just ready to call it a day - not just for today but for life... As I lay there on the floor and waiting for world to stop spinning and the world to cool down, shankar being shankar started a conversation about 'what are your strengths and weaknesses'.. I say conversation, but it was probably more a monologue - given that my lungs were busy doing something I thought was more important -catching my breath!..

Anyways, the last time i thought of my strengths was the usual campus interview time - where the strengths made u seem like gods and the weaknesses were strengths poorly disguised as a weakness.. 'Im so passionate that I expect others to be like me' or ' I work so hard sometimes that Work-life balance is an issue' or the best.. 'My analyses is usually so in-depth that people around me get insecure'.. So nett.. when shanks asked me this - I was floundering for words and making up something as we talked .. umm - leadership, structured thinking... umm.. people skills.. all global answers from a campus interview..

And then it struck me - like a brett lee bouncer striking a hapless sourav ganguly, it wasnt about what I said and wanted to say... but it was more of what I was.. and thats something i didnt know.. shameful ... and soon the shame turned to an itch - to sit and think about it - and we sat for the next 30 mins IM'ing in sweaty clothes at the squash court about how to identify true strengths and weaknesses and what it takes to fix them...

30 sweaty mins later we decided that the conversation needed to be continued over dinner at Shankhas place.. but as we got there - the 37 inch tv, christinas garam paranthas and sachins discussion of his new case on 'organisational structure to maximise efficiencies' took over and my deepdive into my life took a back seat...

After a fairly forgettable Mustafa trip after that, I was back - and thinking about it again... and as I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking... need to know my self better.. much better... not my projected self ... but me, myself..

The second president - Bharat

Famous for his words - 'a bird in hand is best enjoyed with two in the bush' , Bharat 'tam bram' Venugopal arrived to continue the Tam bram legacy in 0803 Elmira Heights..

Soft spoken decent sportsman is what id call Bharat from what I knew of him in IIMB - not something id say about him now (well the sportsman part is true - he was really good till he decided he was good enough to challenge the great nayak! and was promptly reduced to hobbling on his injured knee)

Bharat is a self proclaimed President of the Harami club of IIM Bangalore - beating notables like daaki,girish, monu and nayak.. and that reflects in almost everything that he says or does..

Be warned, if Bharat asks you something - do not answer, if he suggest something - do not do it!, if he rolls his eyes and tells u something - that is not what he means!

A simple way to get him flare up is to talk about tam-brams and how long they take to bathe (more details soon on a blog about tambrams)...

More on bharat soon once we meet Deepti - who we need to actually see to validate his stories about his stories about them :p

the one and only Oli

The risk that I run when I write about Oli is that the words can show him to be overly non-human .. but lemme try anyways..


This ex-Hostel secy of IIMB has continued to be the hostel secy of our house.. which by the way is not an easy job if you have people like Nayak and Bharat staying there!

Transparent to the core, polite and quieter than the rest of us (vs. us is the key parameter mind you!), Oli is the quintessential CMK guy.. No opinion is offered till he is absolutely sure and backed by data, Discussions are dispassionately approached so as to not bias the thinking and most importantly its all about kicking some marketing ass!

Ive always wondered whether it would be easier to get Raja or Oli to do something they did not want to do and despite the lack of data, Oli seems to be the marginal winner - which for those who dont know Raja - IS BIG! - 'Nahi bhai! mujhe toh nahi karna hai' to 'u guys continue on - ill skip' are oft heard in the house.. but the icing on the cake was when we found that he has as SMS template that says 'u guys continue' that he sends out to us when we ask him to join us!!

Recently we found out that Oli has a 2nd family in singapore(assuming that we are the first) - It took Shahanas superior investigative skills to figure it out but once she did it all fell in place.. His in-explicable absences from home, missing ipods and kids stuff lying around at home - and to cap it all - pictures of kids on his phone..

So heres to oli - the rational mind in the house, a fighter to the core and the truest honest person in these 4 walls!

introducing me flatmates

bugger - i should've known - introducing frends on a blog is never a good idea cos u can never cover the whole lot .. so let me cover the set who can cause the most damage to me in the short term - my flat mates in Singapore..

No one starts off anything in our house without taking the name of Nayak... aka BM, Dalla, Geela Presi, and other things that only Shahana can call him..

Under-educated commerce grad from Mumbai - This guy is about 2 primary things a) Women (now replaced by woman) b) Sports (not doing justice to his tremendous singing skills or his funny jokes some might say..but will leave those for Shahanas blog)

Nayak is the quintessential centre of a group - he cracks the jokes that no one finds funny, he makes that plans that no one likes, he claims to do most of the organising in trips .. but most importantly he does this with a smile on his face.. but dont ever fall for that one, cos he is the lowest form of haramipanti available on this planet - he'll take ur case in ways and times that you wont even realise.. he has the ability to take ur trip and still make u feel that u got something out of it..

Of course, no write up on nayak is complete without a mention of :

a) his immense sporting talent - bugger is literally a sponge, throw him into a pool of sport and you'll see him soak it all up - i learnt when i taught him the rules of TT and hours later he was smashing me in what he calls a learning game.. Shankar always claims that nayak stood all night at the Q for sporting talent when god was distributing it upstairs..

b) His complete self denial about his lack of humour and wit - lesser said about this, the better

Anyways, all said and done, the man is a leader, friend and deep down (not very visibly) a philosopher.. 2 years, 2 girl frends, his 20 odd women and some very drunken nights later - I can vouch for Nayak and his frendship :) cheers mate!

introductions

Ive decided to introduce you to some of my frends today... in the order that i interact with them today :

First guy i found online when i woke up was Gopi ..

They say that being a maroo must feel like the cockroaches got a better deal - but if u add a generous portion of a bengali - then u have the lowest form of life - now re-christianed the 'gopis' - He's not very tough to imagine honestly - black as coal (seldom see-able on a moonless night), light blue front teeth (dont even ask why!) and a hair style that screams Jeetendra. And when u really dont think it can get any better, add in a liberal dose of a personality that switches between an 80 year old gyan baaaba and a 16 year old pimply teenager at his first crush and at times a weird combination of both of these (dont ask me how he pulls it off)

Gopi (or gopester as he is still hoping we'll start calling him now) is a chuddy buddy for the last 12 years - 5 years in school where he looked down at me (being the hep guy and me being a commoner), 4 years in engineering looking at me (given that i was his roomie) and 3 years after that looking out for me..

Currently in the US of A this consult to be has a heart of gold - often tripping over his well set principles and several metres of 'chool' (to get more context on this - wait for the section on Ghosh).

Heres to the guy who i know i dont have to talk to for a year and yet when we meet, we'll be just the same :)

ps: For those who came in late - Gopi is the left ugly - the guy who looks like hes been to prison is me

how do they sustain themselves

This blog today is dedicated at the one question that I ask myself everytime i think of Shankar - 'Why?Why would you work this hard?'..

To start off, ill take a couple of steps back and show u the large picture (diligently doing what Alissa - my boss taught me to do.. :p .. 'take a step back Shiv!' ). There are 4 kinds of jobs :

a) High effort and high return : I banking/consulting kinda work i think
b) High effort and low return (god help these ppl ) : sales cos. in india, a lot of non-i banks
c) Low effort and high return : this is the kind that doesnt exist :pp.
d) Low effort and low return : This is the zone of the slackers, the poets, the painters, photographers etc etc and as post MBA options - u have the P&Gs and a host of IT companies

The typical P&G person would lumber in at 9:30ish and makes his way to the pantry area (or if your aussie or wannabe aussie - ud get spinnelli) to get his days first shot of caffeine.. and add to that the subsequent quick exchange of gossipary(is that a word?) notes and you've spent the best part of the next 30 mins.

The rest of the day is not very different - only interspersed with 'meetings' - basically avenues of doing IM! - anyways - i will not digree into a describing a typical day - will leave that for another day..

Back to Shankar - our diligent IIT, IIM topper type guy who is a Tam bram to boot - rational and structured to the core, does not believe in ambiguity - a full head and shoulders above any1 ive met at clarity and depth of thinking ... A guy who will question the smallest thing till he has understood it to a level that u didnt know exist - People call him the 'Why why?' guy. - He is the only one ive met who can break down an emotional response to several smaller rational ones :)

Anyway - our man is a non-typical P&Ger in several ways :
1) He will not stop at a 80:20 analysis - no analysis is complete without doing the full 100% even if that takes 5 more hours
2) He does not believe in constraints like 'personal time' and 'sleep' - supposedly the only question he asks himself is 'can i work a little more to grow the business'

Anyway - the objective of the blog is not to glorify or vilify shankha - its to try and understand what makes these people that driven? Ive got several very very driven frends - Gopi, Tholia, Anuj, Soumi etc etc - but none of the others put so much fight for so less return .. and I continue to wonder..

So we did a 'why-why' analysis with Shankha - and it turns out that he wants to do it for himself - to feel good about what he is doing at work - to revel in self glory that he has gone that extra distance today ... and his learning everyday sustains him!

And im surprised - and pleasantly - cos everytime some said in an interview that im there for the 'learning' - i thought it was a whole load of bull - and today to see some1 really live that life.. wow...

anyway - yet another useless blog - doesnt help any1 - doesnt talk about issues.. just a rambling of whats going on in my mind.. and especially when in a confused head - its a sureshot recipe for what shankar would call - 'hopeless meandering in the desert'.

wow - its happening!

so this is a week of changes!

I finally am moving on from just making blogaddresses and forgetting my password or username or the site itself - but more importantly the following have happened:

- Our house is clean , we can actually see our dining table (not to say that we ever use it but who cares..), the ironed clothes are in the almirah (as opposed to the living room)

- nayak isnt staring at the walls thinking of the times when he and muh bong sis were together - he is actually talking within 10 mins of waking up (more fundaes on this as we get to know each other more)

- rupeee now has 2 sets of papa-mamas :) finally she is gettitng married - ye ye!! U can feel the joy in her even as she walks in to the room - she is glowing!! positively :)

- Bharat is not being harami and oli is not focussed at what he wants - naaah - who am i kidding ... somethings dont change ;)

anyways - amongst other things that havent changed:
- India lost to SL - and tendulkar failed in a crunch match
- Yet another weekend which i thought would be full of sport, activity and excercise and here I am at 1 pm still in my pyjamas watching tv slouched on the couch
- i am already dreading monday - i hate weekdays ive realised :)


anyway - gotto go and fill the paunch with some more food - will come back and introduce u to me and my life - if u come back that is :p