Arvi's Blog

My Birthday

2010-10-04T03:59:00.000-07:00

Time flies. Or does it soar? I can’t believe that nearly a year has passed by since my last birthday! My wife and I threw a BBQ party, had a bunch of friends over, and we were dancing away on our terrace well into the night. Earlier that day, I ran a flood relief collection drive in our neighborhood that day for ImagineIndia, and we pulled together a whole load of books, clothes, medicines and other donations. ImagineIndia is an NGO run by Bharath, a former colleague and friend with a lot of heart, and they continue to do great work directly with schools.

This birthday (Oct 8th), I am collecting funds towards for an NGO called Anbu Karangal (http://www.anbukarangal.org/). My father has been involved with them for several years now, and he has been particularly appreciative of the little things that they do for children. Their center is home to over 90 abandoned children and 43 senior citizens, and is just a few kilometers away from where my parents live.

I have a modest goal for this collection drive: to sponsor the education of 10 children for a whole year. If you would like to help, it’s pretty simple.

Just Rs 2,000/- (US $50) covers the education of a child for a year (including food, clothes, medical aid and school fees). Write out a cheque or demand draft in favor of “Anbu Karangal”, and I'll be happy to pick it up. Contributions are income tax exempt in India under section 80G.

If you would prefer to contribute with smaller amounts, or even through old clothes, books or medicines just let me know. Little things can go a long way.

As for my birthday, I know my wife is planning something, but I dont quite know what yet!

UPDATE: Nov 4th

My thanks to all my friends who have helped in various ways with collections for the orphanage. I'd like to single out a few whose significant contributions will change the lives of ten children in 2011.

o Asit

o Kapil

o Ajith

o Mithil

o Natasha

o Kunal

o Palkesh

o Kuhu

o Mioara

o Vidyanand

I am planning on visiting the orphanage next week along with some Diwali treats, and will be sure to post pictures!

UPDATE: Dec 15th

Short video of the children having fun with Diwali fireworks and playing with Ma Belle!

My mom retires this Friday!

2010-04-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

After nearly three decades as a middle school science teacher, Padma Krishnaswamy, my mom retires from D.A.V. Gopalapuram in Chennai this Friday!

There, now that's some news. She was due to retire two years back, but stayed on after requests from the school to extend her tenure since she is a senior and well respected teacher of the award winning institution (Outlook ranked D.A.V. as the No. 1 school in the country). She still loves the school, the children, and the job, but the longer commute (my parents now live in Thiruvanmiyur) and a desire to finally get around to doing more things around the house have caught up with her. The school is going through a number of changes at this time, and the timing of her decision has nothing to do with them. Change is good in the long run, and I'm sure the school will continue to do well.

Her daily route for the last few decades pretty much meant getting up at 5 in the morning and running through household chores before leaving for school at 7:15 in order to make it past the Adyar traffic. When she gets home by dusk to catch up with other things, it's already been a long day. As you can imagine, my dad is looking forward to her having more time for herself as well for him!

As for me, I'm really happy as well, although I'll probably miss hearing anecdotes from school. Stories of students playing pranks, students getting caught, unusual havan sessions, creative exam answers, and all those other crazy things that go on. (Have you heard the one of the sixth grader who asked a teacher, "Madam, so whom did Draupadi go on her honeymoon with?")

My mom hasn't quite decided what she will be doing next, but one thing we are toying with is helping her set up online Carnatic lessons. She's an excellent singer, who had studied under one of the disciples of Muthuswami Dikshitar as well as with Bala Murali Krishna. Combining her love of music with her passion for teaching may be meaningful, but it's really up to her.

If you are a D.A.V. alum and would like to send her a note, please email her at padmakv at gmail dot com. She doesnt check her email too often, and so I'm hoping she'll be in for a nice warm surprise. Be sure to mention which batch you were from, and any anecdotes you may like to share!

Feb 4th: Bangalore Bus Day

2010-01-26T22:23:00.000-08:00

If you live in Bangalore, you'd empathize with the clip below:

Do you hate Bangalore traffic as much as most of us do?

Well, here's a chance to be a part of an interesting social experiment conducted by the BMTC. They are organizing 'Bus Day' on Thursday, Feb 4th 2010. It's simple. Leave your personal vehicle at home, and use public transport to get to work.

Never taken the bus, and dont know the routes? Well, here's a neat little route map that's printer friendly: (Click here). And if you are headed to Electronic City or ITPL, here are the bus routes (Click here)

TAKE THE BUS TO WORK ON FEB 4th!

All said and done, you might be reading this and dismissing it as yet another passing fad or idealistic initiative. And you may well be right. Public transport may not be the only answer, and needs to be complemented with better infrastructure, better traffic management, and wider metro coverage. But then, take a minute to think of all the pain that the traffic situation gives us today. Give this initiative a chance. Share this post with colleagues and friends. As their slogan says, "Take the bus, boss!"

ACJ Speaker Session: Technology and Journalism

2010-01-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

Slides from my speaker session at Asian College of Journalism earlier today. Great audience, and insightful points raised afterwards. I was really impressed by everyone I met.

Technology, Journalism And Change

View more presentations from Aravind Krishnaswamy.

Main points I tried to make were:

Trusted sources continue to matter
People will pay for more than information - knowledge and insights
There's no longer new media and print media, the digital and physical worlds meld
News has to be personalized and context based
New distribution and editorial models may evolve, like what iTunes did to music
Fundamentals matter - example of dot com boom and bust
New readers growing up in this century are digital era babies, will be key decision makers in the next 10 years.

Featured in Iowa State University Newsletter

2010-01-20T02:48:00.001-08:00

I'm honored to be featured in my alma, Iowa State University's annual departmental newsletter for 2009-10. The newsletter came out a few weeks ago, and they've carried a feature that includes my brief bio, reflections on experiences at ISU, and tips I've offered for graduating students. I owe a lot to ISU for everything I've achieved to date, and have fond memories of life in Ames. Check out Page 14 below!

Iowa State University CS Newsletter 2009-10

View more documents from Aravind Krishnaswamy.

If you have trouble viewing it, you can also get to it off the CS departmental website (click here)

Twit or Tat

2009-12-16T07:57:00.001-08:00

A little bit of this,
and a little bit of that.
I tweet lots,

and twit not.
Follow me on Twitter,

and we'll get to know each other.
Like birds of a feather,
flock together.

www.twitter.com/twitortat

Trends to Watch

2009-12-16T07:45:00.000-08:00

Our team at Levitum has put together a list of key mobile cloud trends to watch in 2010 based on market research. While some of this is stating the obvious, as a whole, I think is extremely insightful and relevant in this rapidly changing landscape.

In short:

Apps will move to the cloud
App Stores will thrive
Battle for the cloud has begun
Open standards and technologies will succeed
Mobile cloud based services will emerge
Enterprises will embrace the cloud

Check out the full whitepaper here: 2010 Mobile Cloud Trend to Watch and feel free to share your comments.

Ten Little Things

2009-12-04T05:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a whirlwind few months, and I've mostly been staying in touch with friends through Facebook and Twitter havent quite done a good job of staying loyal to my blog. It's inevitable - shorter, quicker updates through social networks are here to stay! But here's a quick round up of what's been going on, just in case you missed it.

1) French Classes: Monami and I joined a French class at Alliance Française a few months back. It's been good fun since we've got a very diverse class, and learning a new language opens your mind at several fundamental levels. We've finished the first 3-month course and are on to the next 3-month level. Right now, we're finally getting fairly good at present tense, and are getting the hang of past and future. So, our spoken French is still mostly - I eat. I listen. You eat. We shopped. You get the idea. But we're learning fast, and French is certainly nowhere near as difficult as is you may think it is. Or as high brow either. As for us, while this has been a lot of fun, we are most likely going to stop with the level and do something outside of a classroom next!

2) Food Blog: I've done a few reviews on my food blog in the last few months, but it's been even more fun making quick updates on twitter. Follow us (foodinbangalore). We're now the No. 1 food blog in Bangalore based on Google's Page Rank, and what's what funny was I've been hearing this from the PR agencies who invite me for reviews.

3) Halloween: I did a Salvador Dali-esque painter with a beret and moosh, and Monami was a mime. We hung out at HRC with Mioara and other friends and had a good time.

4) Chennai Visit: I had a good time visiting Chennai over a month back, and caught up my parents. We also visited the house at North Mada Street, Mylapore where my dad grew up. Incidentally, my dad (who is now 67) continues to get involved in new ventures. In addition to his work as a part of the Ford Foundation funded national security think tank CSA, he's also now teaching journalism students at Asian College of Journalism. He's enjoying his teaching stint so far and enjoys sharing his vast experience with others. In other news, my alma D.A.V. high school principal Satish had to resign under mysterious circumstances. And no, despite some inside sources, I don't know what happened. I studied there during the Ram Kalia heydays, and can only believe that the school will continue to change and evolve over time, for the better.

5) Birthday: Monami and I threw a fun BBQ party at our place, and everyone had a blast dancing away on the terrace late into the night. But my highlight of the week was the time I spent through most of that week helping ImagineIndia with collections for the flood victims in northern Karnataka. I ran a drive with our neighborhood to pull together old clothes, books, medicines and donations, and was moved by the huge response. I'm hoping to start to get involved with a school in the neighborhood and am trying to work out areas where I can contribute with social work.

6) Levitum: A few friends and I have launched a startup focused on building 'cloud' based services for mobile devices that connect them with social media. Our name is inspired by the Latin word from which 'levitation' comes from. Sounds cool? Yeah, we thought so as well! We're working on a couple of very exciting ideas, and it's been a lot of hard work in the last few months. We hope to get our first product in private alpha by early 2010 and will start to send out invites to friends & family to check it out ;-) Since we are privately funded, we are bootstrapping ourselves through services engagements, and have a few really cool projects on the iPhone, Android and Nokia smartphones currently in progress. Check our our site www.levitum.com and follow us on twitter: levitum

7) Home Media Center: We set up an awesome home media center using our Mac Mini running Boxee and hooked to our Samsung HDTV. I love how Boxee automatically pulls IMDB data for my entire 2TB external drive movie and music collection, displaying the movie covers, synopsis and subtitles as well. And an iPod touch running the Boxee app is our remote control.

8) December Vacation: We'd initially planned on visiting the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but apparently it's pretty crowded at this time and it's best to go in Feb-March. We're instead taking Ma Belle and driving down to Chennai and then over to Pondicherry for a week!

9) Twitter: The net has become such a gutter, and in desi style, I'm a happy litterbug. Follow me on twitter, and you might catch some insights: twitortat

10) Misc: I was contacted by my alma Iowa State University for a feature in their alumni newsletter as a young achiever. It's an honor, and I'll be sure to post a link when it comes out. Ma Belle has been a sweetheart, and comes with us just about everywhere we go these days (including auto rides!) since she is so docile and obedient. Here's a bunch of videos of U.S. soldiers returning from Afghanistan being welcomed by their dogs. Warning: if you are on the fence about liking dogs, these videos will make you want one of your own.

Doggie Spy Cam

2009-09-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Our golden retriever (Ma Belle) had started behaving a little naughty when we used to be away from home - chewing our shoes and raiding our closet. Since these were habits she'd given up on during her puppy days, we were quite puzzled. I installed a doggy spy cam :) using a software called AirCam which lets me monitor the stream from my iPhone anywhere, and also trigger remote recording sessions. I positioned it strategically to cover the shoe rack area, and turned the Night Vision mode on. As it turns out, she was smart enough to avoid Big Brother on that day, and played good. :-) I've only uploaded the last two minutes of the recording. You can see her enter the frame at 0:14 and perch herself on the stairwell. We enter at 1:32, and are welcomed with the boundless ebullience reflected energy which invigorates us at the end of a long day. Now we just need to catch her up to her mischief another day!

Monkey Business

2009-09-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a little blast from the past - pictures taken near the Mahatma Gandhi statue near Marina beach (you can see the pedestal in the background) playing with a pet monkey (the owner was nearby). As you can see, my simian connections are quite evident! That's my father with me in the last picture.

Ma Belle and Leia play

2009-09-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

Our dog and one of her pals at play on our terrace. Check out this video on YouTube:

Leia is the tease with the toy and Ma Belle is the lighter colored golden in dogged pursuit.

Tether your iPhone and laptop with Airtel or Vodaphone GPRS

2009-09-04T03:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'll have to assume you've already unlocked and jailbroken it. If not, ethical ground aside, head here - you can finish this over your morning coffee, and it requires minimal tech knowledge. And don't worry, its extremely hard to brick your phone.

Now that you've done that, you'll love these apps off Cydia which Apple didnt approve on their store, but truly tap into the full potential of the device:

Cycorder: If you are still on a 2G device without video cam capabilities, you'd love Cycorder.
Pixelpipe & PPVideoEnabler: These together let you upload your videos directly over Wi-Fi to Youtube, Facebook, and several other sites without needing to go through your computer.
Backgrounder: Work around Apple's frustrating lock on multitasking by using this little app to background apps. Now, you can run Skype in the background while doing other things with your phone.
MCleaner: Are you sick and tired of the daily SMS spam? MCleaner enables you to set up whitelist and blacklist filters so you can avoid the marketeers. It works for calls as well in case there's someone whom you are trying to avoid.

But then, this post was about tethering your iPhone and laptop! I'm actually writing this post off my laptop, sitting at a Cafe Coffee Day. My laptop taps into my iPhone as if it were a wireless router, and I surf away to glory.

First, the prereq: download and install PdaNet off Cydia. It's free and is hosted by ModMyi.com (add the repository if Cydia doesnt have it).

And now, in three really easy steps:

Set up a Wi-Fi network off your laptop, which your iPhone will join. You got that - it's not the other way around. Go to Control Panel>>Network Connections>>Wireless Network Connection Properties>>Add. The Add button lets you create ad hoc networks. Pick any Network Name (SSID), choose WEP and ensure you stick in a decent password. Be sure to check 'This is a computer to computer network; wireless access points are not used'.
Now, switch over to your iPhone, go to Settings and join the Wi-Fi network you've just created.
You are almost done! Open PdaNet and let it check the Wi-Fi connection and complete tethering. Congrats! Surf away :-)

Now a few caveats. You'll need to be sensitive to which GPRS data plan with Airtel or Vodafone you have. These days, they've dropped their prices significantly, and I have an unlimited plan. You may noticed that this uses WEP and not WPA. While this isn't ideal from a security perspective, this is the only option to get tethering working. Tethering also drains your iPhone battery, so keep it plugged into your laptop at low brightness. Speeds aren't great - you are limited by the carrier network, but this beats the speeds you'd get out of paid Wi-Fi at a cafe or airport lounge in India. And finally, exiting PdaNet will disconnect you. You can work around this by installing the Backgrounder app mentioned earlier in this post.

If you need any help getting this working, give me a shout.

Fair winds, matey!

2009-08-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

So long, and fair winds, matey!

How to rejuvenate an old PC with Puppy Linux

2009-08-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Got an old laptop or PC with 256MB or less RAM? Puppy Linux can help rejuvenate it for you.

Having said that, you'll need to be prepared to veer off the beaten path and work through challenges that come up.

Here's a few ideas to think about for your old comp:

Set up a headless torrent client
Lite browser version for guests and visitors
Home media center streaming server
Private home VPN

I picked up an old 1.13 Ghz IBM R31 that I purchased in 2002 and set up Puppy Linux. The four main things I had to do in order to get things working were:

Partition: Split my 80GB partition to offer 1GB for Puppy, 256MB of swap space, and the rest for a shared FAT partition. Yes, you got that right - just 1GB. Puppy Linux is 100MB in size. I kept the rest of the partition FAT in case I decide to install Win7 in the future or share files with my Macs. With Puppy, you also have the option of booting off a USB dongle. Unfortunately, my R31 BIOS didn't support it and I had to install off a CD.
Kernel boot params: On my IBM R31, I had to add i8042.nomux=1 in the kernel boot params to work around a Thinkpad mouse bug. Without this, the pointer ends up being all jumpy.
Wireless: Unless you are lucky enough to have a card or dongle on this list, you'll need to scrounge around with the ndiswrapper layer. It took me a while, but I finally have a strong signal from my Airport Extreme.
Apps: The pup may be a little lite for your preferences plain vanilla. I added on Firefox, Transmission, OpenVPN, Java and Skype. Grab a precompiled Skype binary from here.

Also look at: DSL, Amahi.

H1N1, Drought, and our Right to Justice

2009-08-17T01:28:00.001-07:00

When I first heard of H1N1 a couple of months back, I seriously thought it was some new U.S. work visa category! It's now mid-August and panic about the virus has spread across the country faster than the virus itself.

While the underlying concerns are genuine, the media induced frenzy to buy masks and line up to get checked feels a bit extreme. I've received several dozen emails about various tips to avoid swine flu. Quick to take advantage of a situation like this, a number of alternative medicine touts have been broadcasting SMS messages promising to offer protection through tonics and protective oils. One SMS even claimed that fumigation of your home could keep the flu out.

I'm not in any way dismissing the impact the outbreak could have. Our poor medical infrastructure, thickly populated cities and lackadaisical approach to hygiene are a recipe for a healthcare crisis. But then, wait a minute. We already have a crisis, with several people dying of other diseases every day. My hope is that we take a more holistic approach to our healthcare situation instead of being reactive due to fear of the unknown, and ensure that we have a better longer term and sustainable plan.

Swinefluindia.com: I found a site which appears to be doing good job aggregating information about do's, dont's, symptoms, precautions, testing centers in various cities. Visit them at www.swinefluindia.com. They also offer to update their site with any additional information coming in - just follow the instructions below to send them your notes:

"Send the updated page to swinefluindia AT gmail DOT com and ensure that the Subject is “updated page” (all lower case). We use filters and labels to screen our emails, so a wrong subject line would result in an unnecessary delay. Also, copy and paste the change description you wrote in the page, in the body of your email so it makes it easy for us to understand what you have sent.
All emails received with “updated page” as subject will be given the highest priority. Please read these guidelines before you send anything. For technical issues and queries mail us with the subject "tech support""

Here's a page off their site with information on testing in Bangalore: http://www.swinefluindia.com/bengaluru.html

Also useful was the guidelines that have been provided to schools and colleges about H1N1. Until recently, students needed to produce a medical certificate to take sick time off. It appears that in an attempt to avoid closure of educational institutions, the guidelines have been revised by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

(i) Any student or staff member showing flu like symptoms such as fever, cough, running nose and difficulty in breathing should be allowed to stay at home for a period of 7 to 10 days.
(ii) Educational institutions should not insist on production of medical certificate by the student/staff.
(iii) Educational institutions should monitor the health status of such students/staff who might have come in contact with a suspected case of Influenza AH1N1 to see whether they develop flu like symptoms. In case they do so, they should be allowed to stay home, as outlined at (i) above
(iv) In case of students staying in Hostels, the educational institutions would not only monitor the health status of the students, but also that of care providers. It has to be ensured that the care providers wear face mask and wash hands regularly. It might not be advisable to send the boarders back to home, as it would spread infection further.
(v) Educational institutions are further encouraged to report such cases to local health officers for further monitoring.
(vi) Given the current magnitude of the spread of AH1N1 infection and the fact that the current virus is fairly mild, closure of educational institutions on account of any student/staff member falling ill with flu like symptoms is not recommended.
(vii) In the first place, the schools should discourage the excursions of the students to the affected countries.
(viii) In case if the students had proceeded to affected countries on unavoidable tours, then on their return, if some students show flu like symptoms of fever, sore- throat , cough , body ache, running nose, difficulty breathing etc. they should be advised to abstain from attending school and be allowed to stay at home for a period of 7 to 10 days.

Drought: In a recent broadcast, NDTV highlighted that this years acute drought is likely to affect our country much more than H1N1. The impending famine, shortage of food products and price rise threaten to affect our large rural population and worsen malnutrition. In Vidarbha, Maharashtra where several farmer suicides happen every year due to drought, the rainfall is 80% less compared to the same period last year. And the bad news is, this isnt likely to be a one off drought year - satellite imagery has shown that the water table in our north western states has depleted significantly. Unless the government launches a program to drive more awareness about the impending water crisis, ways of planting crops that utilize less water, more efficient irrigation techniques, and leverage of the extensive river network so it isn't flood in one state and famine in the other, we may be talking about mass migration of our population.

While the future looks gloomy, the response of the government to the challenges faced inspires confidence. They have moved swiftly to handle the H1N1 situation without getting too caught up in the mass panic. The regulation of food prices and relief packages for drought hit regions are going to be key to helping revive our markets. The newly announced tax code is a huge bold step forward, and deserves a whole separate post. And today, I read about Manmohan's message to everyone in the judicial system:

“Like Gandhiji’s common man, the focus of the judicial system should be to wipe every tear of every waiting litigant,” Dr. Singh said, adding that “unless we meet his or her legitimate demands and expectations in letter and in spirit, we cannot rest in peace.”

I'm just hoping this turns out to be more than a quickly forgotten political statement. Most of us in India do not turn to our courts since we see them as just not being worth the hassle. Our slow, inefficient, and bureaucratic system takes ages for resolution of most issues. If this changes, all of us would finally be able to cherish a fundamental right - the right to justice.

Evernote, Spotify and Amahi

2009-08-12T03:15:00.001-07:00

I've been using Evernote for over a year now as my primary note taking app. It does a fantastic job keeping my notes in the cloud so I stay in sync between work, home and on my mobile. But it's "killer" feature is its handwriting recognition. Often enough, I end up taking notes on the go either in my notebook or on post-its. I just scan them and sync to Evernote, and its sophisticated script recognition searches the images. For business cards, Evernote just uses my Macbook's iSight camera to grab a snap. Now, I can check back at my notes anywhere anytime to find what I need - even from a cybercafe through their web interface.

Over the last week, I've taken the power of Evernote and applied it to a pretty mundane task - eliminating the clutter in my study (#7 on my 'list'). I've taken every flyer, receipt, statement, document and printout and sorted them into three categories:

Trash. Heads straight for the bin. This category was about 20% of the junk that had piled up.
Soft storage. I scan a copy, upload to Evernote and trash the paper. This category was larger than I had imagined. 80% of the papers lying around were things I didnt need hard copies of. This made a huge difference in eliminating a lot of papers.
Permanent storage. I scanned the copy, uploaded to Evernote, and categorized the documents into manila folders for archival in a closet.

I've used a dozen different note taking tools in the past - from OneNote to Treepad, but I dont think any of them come close to Evernote. I would highly recommend giving it a try!

While on the topic of useful software, here's two others to check out:

Spotify - Forget Last.fm and Pandora. Get onto Spotify for listening to music. You'll need to use an online proxy to work around the country restrictions and use it in India.
Amahi - Take an old laptop/desktop and convert it into a media center that streams your home collection of movies, music, and files. Plus, access it from anywhere using the inbuilt VPN (based on Open VPN). Currently runs on Fedora.

Je rêve un rêve

2009-07-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for having disappeared for a bit again - it's been a busy couple of months, and this should be an eventful post. Firstly, the acquisition of the enterprise assets of SupportSoft by Consona which I had earlier mentioned was in progress was completed end of last month. In my 8+ years with SupportSoft, I was a part of the early core group that built up our products (1999), took the company to a grand IPO on the NASDAQ (2000), built up our India development center from scratch (2003), and reached a significant milestone with over 40 million end users of our products worldwide. The acquisition by Consona, a growing and profitable CRM products and solutions provider will enable all the value created to go the distance under the umbrella of their suite. As is common with these types of acquisitions, most of our senior leadership team, myself included received a respectful handshake and are on to our next ventures. For me, this has provided a great opportunity to catch up on a long list of things I've been wanting to do for a while prior to taking up something new.

10. Learn a new language. Kannada would be more practical, but my wife and I have chosen weekend French classes. At least that way, the next time we have a fight, I can say insensitive things in the language of love!
9. Resume my food review blog. Two PR firms have gotten in touch with me in the last week about a *secret* fine dining restaurant launch coming up that I will be covering. More to come on this front.
8. Learn to play a musical instrument. My mom is an excellent carnatic singer, and has performed at Thiruvaiyaru and Narada Gana Sabha. While I've always run away from these musical roots over the years, I've harbored a desire to pick up the Mridangam.
7. Reorganize my study. Considering I'm married to Monica, it says a lot about my wife's patience that my study is as messy as it is. I'll try and post before and after pictures when I'm done.
6. Spend time with loved ones. This is always difficult, especially with family spread out, but I'm hoping to start with a visit to my grandmother in Pune next month.
5. Enjoy a spur of the moment weekend getaway.
4. Get fighting fit. Or at least lose the remaining winter padding that I blame on living in Europe last year.
3. Build a killer iPhone app. I've got two really exciting ideas which I'm working on, which I hope to be able to share more on once they are on the App Store.
2. Volunteer for a social cause. This is close to my heart, and I am looking for ways to be involved in social work near Challaghatta, where I live.
1. Pursue joy, not happiness. Fifteen years back, as a second year engineering student at P.S.G. Tech in Coimbatore, I was looking for interesting things to do during summer. I was particularly interested in research in chaos theory and fractal image compression since it was evident that the ability to compress images and video would be important in the future. With the help of one of my dad's friends in Bangalore, I visited the Supercomputer Education Research Center (SERC) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc). I managed to get an appointment with Prof. N.Balakrishnan (then Chairman). Bemused at seeing a fresh faced kid come into his office, he gave me a pile of papers to read and said, 'If this scares you, dont come back'. I didnt sleep that night. When I returned to SERC the next morning, I had crunched through all of Jacquin, Barnsley and Fisher's published work. Impressed by my work, Prof. Balakrishnan gave me an uber hectic summer project working with one of his researchers to implement quad-tree based image compression, which we later published in an IEEE journal. Several years later, fractal image compression lost the race to the joint photographic experts group, better known today simply as jpeg. But the lesson I learnt that summer is vivid in my memory. I live for challenges - this defines me as a person. My joy is in looking back at how far we've come, while still looking out for the next steps.

And oh, I filed my taxes with Taxsmile.com yesterday. I was initially hesitant since I've got a few investments and revenue sources that make filing a little tricky and have traditionally required a grey haired CA. However, I found their site easy to use, and they handled all my needs well. When I had questions, their call center was very helpful in addressing all of them. I got the ITR-V response from the IT department today morning, which is a pretty impressive turnaround.

My wife joined Sungard last month, and really likes the energy of her team. Her office is located in Langford Town, which makes it convenient to make quick trips into the city center. We've been spending a lot more time exploring new joints in that area, and it's interesting how much thing have changed in the last five years.

I resurrected an old IBM R31 I had bought in 2002, and got it up and running with PuppyLinux. I considered DSL, but the pup was too cute. And there we have a lightweight home media streaming solution using VLC.

And now for some 'green' news. We installed a solar water heating solution on our penthouse terrace a few months back. I spent a good amount researching the various major players in the local market - Tata BP, Solarizer, V-Guard, and OrbEnergy. It was pretty evident that OrbEnergy (a spin off from Shell Renewables) had the best combination of a great product, strong customer service and a local presence. The installation of the evacuated tube collector based system went well and was done in a day, but the plumbing changes required to lay insulated KiTEC pipes took a week. And ever since then, we've been getting enough hot water daily for everyone in the family, even on cloudy days. The heating effects are cumulative, and so it takes a few cloudy days in a row before the temperatures drop. As a backup for such occasions, I opted for the electrical heater add-on, which in effect turns the storage cylinder into one big geyser. I am so thrilled by how well the system is working, I would highly recommend the move to solar heating for anyone who has sufficient terrace space. The reasons are simple enough:

1. It's environment friendly! India in general, and Bangalore in particular is blessed with bright sunshine at least 7-8 months of the year. What better than to leverage it to be more eco-friendly by avoiding electricity or gas usage?
2. It's a longer term cost saving measure. We are saving Rs 500 a month on electricity bills, which would give us an ROI in 6 years. If you are planning a new home and skip purchasing geysers, your returns would be sooner.
3. Hot water anytime. No 10-15 minute waits while your geyser kicks off. Or, when there is a power outage during a winter morning when you are about to shower and head in to work.
4. There's always electric backup for those cloudy monsoon months. Like I mentioned earlier, the add-on heating element turns the storage cylinder used by the solar system into a large geyser.
5. "The what switch?" Ever struggled trying to explain to an international guest how to use the 'switch' to turn water heating on? Yep.

As we know, Karnataka is facing an energy crisis this year, and our rural areas are suffering from several hours of load shedding. Clearly, this isnt a sustainable solution, and Manmohan Singh knows it. The 'National Solar Mission', which our PM is promoting promises to deliver 20GW of solar power by 2020, and a proportionate cut in greenhouse gas emissions. Now, wouldn't that be something?

Off to Bheemeshwari

2009-06-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

Monami starts work at Sungard on Monday! Since we've got a small window of opportunity now to have a quick vacation while both of us have the time, all of us are getting away from the city for a couple of days to the Bheemeshwari cauvery fishing camp!

Do you remember these old Ads?

2009-06-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

Remember the Liril girl? Vinod Khanna in the Cinthol Ad? Hamara Bajaj? The Zing Thing? Here are some old Indian TV Ads that should stir up some memories. Read on...

Hamara Bajaj

The classic Indian ad which further spurred the boom in scooter sales, and changed Indian traffic forever ;-)

Gold Spot - the Zing Thing

Thumbs Up and Gold Spot ruled the soft drink market in the pre-liberalization days until Coke and Pepsi came in.

Vinod Khanna in Cinthol

Vinod, Imran and others lent their macho image to Godrej's popular soap.

Lime 'n Lemony Limca

Recognize the Bollywood star in this ad? Both he and Limca continue to thrive.

Lijat Pappad

Looking back, I cant believe that this was such a popular ad back then, but I remember this appearing on TV often.

The Liril Girl

Bollyood has always had a thing for waterfalls and sirens. But when ad man Alyque Padmasee combined the freshness of lime with the imagery of waterfalls and a peppy jingle to promote a new soap, he created more than just a hit brand. The Liril girl was born.

Rasna

Forget Kool-Aid, Rasna was the best.

Two ads I've been unable to find are the early Maggi noodles and Nirma washing powder adverts. If anyone finds them, let me know!

Two Impostors

2009-06-05T01:42:00.000-07:00

“Defeats never make you grow, but you also realise how difficult what I achieved up until today was, and this is something you need sometimes. You need a defeat to give the value to your victories. I must accept my defeats with the same level of calm that I accept my victories”

—Rafael Nadal

I'm a huge fan of Roger Federer's silken game, but it is Rafael Nadal's mental maturity and ability to compartmentalize things that has blown me away in the recent past. During this year's Australian Open, he went from being a fierce competitor during the closing moments of the game to a gentle human being consoling Roger a few minutes later on the podium. For a 23 year old, he is ahead of his years, or at least way ahead of where I was at that age.

The quote on top of this post came from Rafa during the press interview following his shock loss to Robin Soderling at this year's French Open. History was at stake, with an opportunity to blow away Bjorn Borg's record by winning five straight Coupe des Mousquetaires and become undisputedly the greatest claycourter ever. Rafa was visibly upset after the game, waving away the oncourt interviewer after the game and rushing in for a shower. However, his comments during the interview were balanced, composed and almost philosophical. Like Rafa has said, at times, we need a defeat to give value to our victories and to remind us to cherish our achievements and possessions while still looking forward to the next challenges. This also reminded me of If, the well known and much parodied poem by Kipling

"If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same"

Pakistan military funding? Not again!

2009-06-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday was a great positive step towards U.S. relationships with the Muslim world. While I'm sure there will be his detractors, his persistence and genuine interest in bringing together the global community will eventually pay off.

I'm increasingly worried however about signs that the U.S. will pump further funds into the Pakistan military in an attempt to bolster counterinsurgency against the Taliban. That would simply mean slipping into the same trap the U.S. has fallen into several times in the past. Back in the 90's, the Taliban were supported by the US to repel the Soviets and eventually turned against them. Pakistan continued to stealthily support the Taliban since they acted as an insurance in case the U.S. withdrew its support. In the recent past, the Bush administration has pumped in over $12 billion in funding for the Pakistani army, most of which appears to have been whittled away through corrupt hands.

It appears that Obama has promised Pakistan $1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years to train and equip their army. While I understand that Obama would not want to risk American lives this stage and would rather wage a proxy war through the Pakistan army or by random airstrikes, this is just the same old story all over again.

Here's what I feel needs to happen:

Obama needs to invest funds in Pakistan. In case that sounds contradictory to what I've just said earlier, my point is that the funds need to get to the right places - education, capital, infrastructure. The Pakistani people are increasingly frustrated with Zardari and it would be a disaster if military rule returned. Longer term sustainable growth is needed for their democracy to thrive and better relationships with India.
Obama needs to partner closely with Indian and Pakistani governments to deal with counterinsurgency. It's a thin red line, but this is ultimately in India's interests as well as the last thing Delhi wants is the Taliban knocking at India's borders. Given the escalated situation in Sri Lanka as well, this could be extremely volatile for the subcontinent.

In a few months from now, we'll be coming up on 26/11/09 and the general public will start to demand strong action from Manmohan to firmly address the terrorism issue. Pakistan's release of Hafiz Saeed hit the headlines in India, but the response and protests have not been that vocal yet. It remains to be seen how Chidambaram approaches this with Obama.

Obama has a huge number of issues to deal with at this stage both at home in the U.S. and abroad. So far, he's been able to deflect most criticism like a true teflon leader, but he is likely aware that his honeymoon period is ticking away. He'll need to make substantial progress on the core issues over the next few months in order to continue to bolster support.

Obama has 15, Manmohan needs 33

2009-05-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Manmohan Singh needs 33 cabinet ministers as a part of his panel. In contrast, Obama requires only 15. That said, Manmohan has a significant challenge maintaining a balance across the social and regional dimensions of the coalition party. They have chosen to go with several young leaders, with a large number of ministers in their 40s and some in the 30s. Interestingly, there are four ministers from Karnataka. Clearly, this is a sign for the BJP government in Bangalore.

In other news, it turns out that the publishers of the Archie comics have decided that he finally needs to choose between Veronica and Betty. In some ways, it feels like a short sighted way of attracting some attention to the franchise. But then, who knows how this might turn out. Let's play out a few possible endings depending on whom the script ends up with.

Hollywood Producer: Archie is about to propose to Veronica, but makes a last minute decision to propose to Betty. Veronica finds love with Jughead.

Independent Producer: Archie finds true love with Jughead. Betty proposes to Moose. Veronica drives into the sunset with Reggie.

Bollwood Producer: Copies the Hollywood script, adds Anu Malik music, but changes the storyline to a Karz style remix with Archie proposing to Veronica, getting murdered by her evil father's goons, being reborn and proposing to Betty's daughter.

And oh, here's an interesting article that presents an ROI model for using Agile vs. Traditional methods.

This blog aint dead yet

2009-05-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

And what a time to revive it.

The Sensex zoomed up 2111 points today, a euphoric stock market response to the UPA Congress election victory. Federer, starved of a title in what has felt like eons, beat Nadal. In a final. On Clay. In Spain. In straight sets. And perhaps even freakier, Kolkota Knight Riders chased an impossible 189 run target successfully against Chennai Super Kings to break a 9 match losing stream at the IPL T20.

There's definitely been a whole lot going on in the last several months. But first, I must thank the many of you who wrote in to see how I was doing after the car accident. I had a whiplash, but was fine otherwise. The car took about a month to get back from the garage and about Rs 1.2L (most of which was covered fortunately by insurance).

And we soon put it to the test, driving down to Coorg in December for a pet vacation at a home stay. Our hosts were very friendly, and we had a great time touring around their large estates of coffee, pepper, cardamom, mangoes and oranges. Ma Belle quickly morphed from the city dog into a wild crazed thing. She got busy chasing chicken, bullying the neighborhood dogs, hustling the cattle and running through the fields in a frenzy. She definitely had a good vacation. As for us, we spent a good amount of our time hosing her down after her adventures. In case you are looking for a family outing with your pet, give me a shout and I'll pass on the contact information of the home stay in Davangeri, Coorg.

I travelled to the US in the second week of Jan for our annual Sales Kickoff held in California. As expected, discussions were mostly around the gloomy economy. I took some time off one evening to go shopping in San Francisco and bought Monami a katana set. The highlight of my trip however was being in California during Obama's inaugural speech. That moment took me back to my first year in college when my classmate Badri made a speech about life. He had titled it 'Life=Hope+etc'. I looked around the room filled with colleagues huddled together in our Bay Area corporate boardroom, watching the streaming video off CNN's live inaugural telecast. Hope was all around.

In Feb, we made our annual trip to the dusk to dawn Fireflies festival of music. This year, their event coincided with the Bangalore Habba, and several key performers didnt show up. Sans Oikyotaan, the event was quite low key and almost felt like a collegiate event.

Early March, I flew to Mumbai to attend the Sadabishekam of Dochi, my father's eldest brother. Traditionally, this is celebrated once someone has 'seen a 1000 full moons'. This usually falls between the age of 80 and 81. This was a rare family celebration where all of my father's four siblings were together, including his eldest sister who is now 84.

The next day, my father and I travelled through Mumbai to visit the site of the 26/11 terror attacks. We first went by the Taj and Oberoi hotels, near where the terrorists had landed on boats. We next made our way to Nariman House. Right outside, bullet holes were marked with little red circles. Rubble lay all on the road. A toppled steel menorah leaned on the wall. Quiet tourists were looking up at the upper floors. We could hear hushed whispers about the commandos. But no memorial, no eternal flame, no visible indication of the dramatic series of events that unfolded in the little gully on 26/11. But while life goes on as usual for the Mumbai residents near Nariman House, they have not forgotten the November terrorist attacks.

And come end of March, Monami and I were all set to move in to our recently purchased duplex penthouse at Shriram Spandhana. The upper level is just open terrace at this point, but we plan to build a pergola and little glass house someday. The move wasnt as easy as we'd hoped as the interior designer we'd hired wasnt well planned, and did a shoddy job. After a few incredibly frustrating weeks, we were somewhat settled in. We setup a solar heating solution through Orb Energy, a spin off from Shell Renewables. They've done a good job overall, and we've had piping hot water since then, be it rain or shine. In addition to the environment friendly factor, the solution offers an ROI versus regular geysers and electricity costs in 4-5 years and was a no brainer for a city like Bangalore.

In April, our CEO announced a definite agreement for our enterprise division to be acquired by Consona. They are a profitable, privately held company in the CRM space that has been growing inorganically through a number of acquisitions. We are still in discussions with them, and the transaction is expected to close in the next month.

This post wouldnt be complete without a tech update. With memory prices down I upgraded the RAM on my MacBook to 4GB and installed VMWare Fusion. I set up a really light weight Windows VM that occupies little over 4 GB of space. I mapped the My Documents folder to the Mac host, and set up rcp scripts to periodically backup to my pen drive and time machine. I have the Windows VM 2GB of RAM to cover all my work needs with Office2007, Intercall and VPN, and run it Fusion in Unity mode, which gives me a truly integrated experience. I use Skype, Evernote, Adium, OmniWeb and Safari off the host, with the ability to launch guest applications on a need basis. I still use my office Dell, although it's delegated to handling email archives. I have my VM setup to autoprotect daily, weekly and monthly snapshots. This proved to be a lifesaver when the corporate antivirus got corrupted when I was travelling internationally. After our corporate IT guy got stuck since the uninstall didnt work as it should have, I was able to just flip back to an old snapshot. Since My Documents was mapped to the host, I have no data loss, and it is also virus free. The combination of the power of OS X (built on a FreeBSD kernel), the usability and aesthetic that Apple provides and the practicality of Windows has been sheer nirvana.

Finally, here's two interesting and useful links:

Looking for venture funding for a startup idea? Here's a VC financing term sheet generator for you. You need to fill in the questionnaire to generate the sheet. It's an interesting approach to a complex process.
Those of you who know me well know how much I care about good design when it comes to building good software products. Here's a link to a must read article that covers 10 questions with Hartmut Esslinger - "The Inside Scoop on Design". Here are a few notable excerpts from the article:
Question: Why is it that companies with billions of dollars who can hire any designer or design firm in the world put out such crappy products?
Answer: Excellent products require more then just a good designer or a good design agency—they require humanistic and cultural vision, courage and discipline in execution. There are two reasons why crappy products are so common: first, most “companies with billions of dollars” don’t want to charter new ways because they are in a defensive setting in order to defend their existing business—and when the billions and the business are gone, it’s too late for change. Second, big companies normally have neither the people nor the processes to innovate and there are no real rewards for taking the risks and efforts required in the endeavor for excellent products. In my career, SONY under Akio Morita was the only big company which rejected the common addiction to mediocrity and went for world-changing innovations. Now they are stuck as well….
Question: What are your top ten products of all time?
Answer:
Electric Light Bulb
Japanese Lunch Box(es)
Mercedes 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut”
Boeing 707
Porsche 911
Apple Macintosh (after the Macintosh SE)
Arne Jacobsen Chair “3107” by Hansen
Sony Walkman 2
Gibson Les Paul Custom Guitar
Hubble Telescope
Question: If a young person wants to be a great designer, what should he or she do?
Answer: “Design” isn’t a clear-cut talent profession, but one of coordination and catalyst between human needs, science and technology, business and economy, as well as sociology and ecology. The artistic talent required is more of an enabler at the end of rational and emotional analysis as well as strategic conceptualization.Therefore, it is vital to learn and study as much as possible especially about business, technology and human nature. In the end, there are flavors in design which are more esthetic—see New York Times “Style Magazine”—but design is only relevant when it improves human lives by appealing both to the mind and the heart.Finally, a young person with the right talents needs to have infinite desire and never give up. I apply a simple test with young students: smash a teapot into pieces and then hand out the glue. Those who rebuild the teapot won’t make it, those who create phantasy animals and spaceships will.

So you've now read Hartmut Esslinger's top 10 products of all time. I scratched my head and came up with my Top 10 list focused on software (in no order whatsoever):

Photoshop: From minor tweaks for a beginner to advanced design work, Photoshop meets all your digital needs and has stood the test of time and competition
Mosaic Browser: It was 1994. I was poking around with archie and gopher on an SGI Iris Indy at the Indian Institute of Sciences, when I discovered Mosaic. Browsing took on a whole new meaning.
Lotus 1-2-3: It made the spreadsheet and later MS Excel a staple on every office computer.
Mac OS: A derivative of the Free BSD kernel, Apple transformed it with the unique usability and design they excel at. In particular, the Expose feature is my favorite and radically changes interaction between man and machine.

Salesforce.com: True SaaS pioneer with a game changing approach to how software products are delivered, upgraded and value assessed in an on demand model.
MPI and PVM: Not quite products, but I havent seen a message passing layer as well designed for clusters.
MS Word: Ubiquitous. Easy to use for most medium to complex tasks. The 2007 design cleans up a number of rough edges.
iTunes: While not as feature rich as winamp, it's well rounded design and ability to stream music over the air is a huge factor.
Hotmail: Not the first mail product, but clearly the one that took sendmail to the masses and ruled the roost until gmail showed up.
Skype: Built by the guys who gave us Napster, voice and video calling hasnt been the same since I started using Skype.

What would your 10 be?

Car Accident

2008-09-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

This is a slightly delayed post to share an update that most of you are aware of by now, but may not be aware of all the details. Unfortunately, I was in a car accident here in Bangalore on Sep 12th. And I guess when it rains, it pours! Monami was out of town that week visiting her parents. Ma Belle had been unusually naughty that morning and had chewed through one of Monami's books. The morning before the accident, I called Monami up and jokingly told her that I was having a bad day and that she had better get back sooner since the house was upside down without her. I had no idea... my bad day was yet to begin...

I was driving down Airport Road near the Command Hospital area coming from the Domlur end. When I turned around a bend in the road, I saw a few boxes lying in front of me and slowed down to a stop. There was a travels vehicle behind me which slowed down as well. However, a BMTC bus that was speeding that rammed into the vehicle behind me, resulting in a pile up. Fortunately, no one was badly injured. A lady in the vehicle behind me suffered bruises and was rushed to the hospital, but was released soon after. I had a whiplash and pain the lower back for a few days, but am perfectly fine now.

My car suffered severe damage at the rear end, and body was fused with the tires. Since I could not drive it, the only option was to tow it straight to the Nandi Toyota garage. Here's a picture of the rear that I took with my camera phone right after the crash. I wish had a picture from the side to give you a sense of how much it was flattened.

My mom was visiting us that afternoon and was stuck at the train station since I was held up. I called up Vatsa for help and asked him to pick up my mom and come to the police station. The tow truck took ages to come, and when it finally did, they struggled since I have a front wheel drive. I sat in the car as we slowly ambled towards the Indiranagar BDA. Kids on the road waved at me, amused to see the car being towed in reverse.

The police station was a nightmare. First, finding it was tricky enough. I might have mistaken it for a barn due to the stacks of gunny bags lying outside, but for a small sign by the side. Second, the policemen preferred to speak only Kannada and made me rewrite the FIR thrice to include various details. Fortunately, Vatsa's fluency paid off and helped ensure I put down the right details. We then had to run to the RTO since they are closed over the weekend and we had to get the inspection done the same day in order to avoid having to wait until the next week. We were sent from one counter to another at the RTO and asked to get signature from people, which appeared to be an alibi to delay our meeting the right person. When we finally got through the red tape, they were courteous and helped us get through the investigation quickly (not sure if that was a good thing). The BMTC driver had claimed all along that his brakes didnt work properly. The RTO tests showed that they were in perfect working condition. In another twist, during the investigation, another BMTC bus pulled into the RTO - coming in from another accident. Scary.

Once I had the FIR, I proceeded to call insurance (TATA AIG), who were very lax in responding back. I'm fairly certain I will switch providers next time around. Nandi Toyota was very responsive and helpful and I have nothing but great things to say about their services. They helped me to ensure I got the vehicle towed safely, provided me with all the information I needed upfront, were courteous in handling of the service request, kept me updated about progress, and ensured that I had minimum paperwork or hassles to deal with. Unfortunately, they cant do much to help soften the blow - the damage is 1.3L and will require some wrangling with insurance.

I cant help but think: What if I had chosen to just ram through those boxes and deal with the front end damage? There was a divider on the right and moving traffic on the left and swerving was not an option. A front end collision is more dangerous, and I didnt know what was in the boxes (they turned out to be light). But at least, it may have avoided the pile up. Sigh.

What did I learn? I dont have anything particularly new to say, but here are my top 10 takeaways:

10. Always keep your emergency contact information handy. You never know when you may need it.

9. The police investigations are a scam. Take pictures on your own if you can for insurance purposes at the place where the accident occurred.

8. Be patient through police and RTO red tape. It's intricately designed to wear and break you down to the point where you'd grease palms.

7. Insurance is another scam. They will chase you down at renewal time, but it will be you doing the chasing when you need them. TATA AIG has been unresponsive and of little help.

6. I love my car. It bore the brunt of the impact.

5. Keep copies of your RC book, insurance policy papers, and Driving License in your car at all times.

4. Use public transport ;-) They are the most dangerous for others on the road, but are the safest to ride in!

3. Nandi Toyota rocks. Great dependable and professional service.

2. Your health comes first. Ensure you get professional medical care immediately after the accident first. Since I felt ok, I went first to the police station to lodge an FIR. If I had internal injuries, this could have been a different story.

1. Life is precious and incidents like this serve as a reminder of how fragile it is. Enjoy and savor every moment of it.

Comic: Ma Belle's Vet Trip

2008-09-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Ma Belle is now a happy four month old pup and is growing up into the sweetest thing ever. She is the darling of the kids in the neighborhood who love playing with her since she is absolutely gentle and friendly. We are quite amazed by how quickly she's been learning things - whether it is potty training or learning to give us high fives!

Here's a fun little strip I threw together with pictures of three month old Ma Belle during her trip to the vet for her vaccination. Click on the images for the higher resolution pictures off Picasa in case you have trouble reading the fine print.

But seriously, it went smoothly and our vet Dr Pawan is fabulous. Like most dogs, she wasnt to happy being held and confined during the vaccination and nail clipping, but was at ease right after and went around getting to know a few of Pawan's other patients (including a rabbit and a persian kitten).

My Food Blog - Fresh New Look!!!

2008-08-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

My Food Blog has a fresh new look with a blazing fast blogger template that 'pre-loads' pages in advance so that your user experience is seamless!!! My thanks to a new blogger template released by Ramani (Hackosphere). Read on to know more about it.

Ramani's Neo template uses a technology called AJAX to asynchronously preload your labels and posts from your blog feed. His site has simple dummied down instructions that make it pretty simple if you are not technical. If you current are on blogspot and would like to get a sense of what your blog might look like with Neo, you can check out his live demo page, which loads up your blog posts within Neo.

There are some feature limitations such as requiring a public blog, single post on main page, and commenters link not showing up next to his name. However, these are tradeoffs required to provide the blazing fast page loads, and are well worth it.

I also did a bit of other housekeeping, changing the banner image, cleaning up the label categories and a few other things which were overdue.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

The "City Lights" Happydent ad

2008-07-10T00:36:00.000-07:00

What an ad.

A glorious sunset. Eastman color hues. A good looking young villager on a bicycle crossing a bridge leading to what looks like a 18th century palace. Sufi music in the background. Palace guards in mallakhamb positions. A tennis court where the Rani is playing (badly). Nearby, the queen mother makes a big splash into the pool. The sleepy aging Raja ambling over to the large dinner table. The villager dashing across the palace grounds, over the wall and past the courtyard to join the human chandelier with just enough seconds to spare to pop a HappyDent chewing gum in and flash a brilliant illuminating smile.

The visual magic of McCann-Erickson and the Sufi-influenced score of Shantanu Moitra ("Tera dil roshan, tera man roshan") with its playful poke at the upper class snobbery of the pre-independence Zamindari system of made this ad an Orbit killer. To learn more about how the ad was made, check out the video (BTW, it also shows the ad at the start - in case you havent seen it yet).

Bravo Rafa! 2008 Wimbledon Champion!!!

2008-07-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

In the 22 years that I've watched tennis, I havent seen a better match, and this is perhaps the greatest every Grand Slam final played. Bravo Rafa!!! Roger could not have lost to a better player, and the significant improvements in Rafa's game showed. Roger staged a tremendous comeback with an attacking game that penetrated Rafa's defenses to event the score, but it was too late. Rafa prevailed 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7. This by far is my favorite sporting moment ever!!!!! Like Alan mentioned to Vijay during the 'On the spot' roundup, today's game needed medical clearance for viewers - there were so many heart stopping moments. Rafa has taken men's tennis to a whole new level, and this will lead Roger and Nole to improvise only further. I cant help but feel fortunate to have watched this exceptional match live - what a great time for tennis.

In Memoriam: Sam Manekshaw

2008-06-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

In Memoriam: Field Marshal Sam "Bahadur" Manekshaw

(3rd April 1914 - 27th June 2008)

The stories of Sam Bahadur's life have always inspired me. His exploits in WWII fighting in Burma despite his stomach having been ripped by Japanese gunfire. The India-China in 1961 where he reinvigorated the troops and pushed back the Chinese offense. And the well known anecdotes from the victory in the India-Pak war of 1971. But more than his military triumphs, his style of leadership was remarkable. While he had his quirks and eccentricities, he was hands-on and led by example even when he was the commander, which is unique in the Indian military context. His personal charisma and easy manner made him immensely popular with the jawans.

"Any one who says he knows no fear, is either lying, or a Gurkha!" - Sam Manekshaw

Ma Belle vs. Froggy

2008-06-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

Our golden retriever pup is a hyperactive bundle of energy and loves playing my wife's old stuffed animals. Watch this duel with her toy frog - she gores it to death like a crazed tigress and then gives us her innocent puppy dog look.

Does meeting madness get to you?

2008-06-16T00:21:00.000-07:00

Do you feel at times that you are in so many meetings that you just arent adding much value? Or that you are in an ad-hoc meeting where you land up and the discussion goes completely off course? And group IQ goes down with the increasing number of participants? Or are you usually just too busy looking at your blackberry or answering email to bother?

Organizing meetings is not easy, especially in today's globalized world with attendees from different timezones and continents, several distractions, and analysis paralysis. I've learnt a few tips in my career on organizing meetings effectively from a number of sources (particularly Marissa Mayer from Google, and various colleagues and partners I've worked with). I can't say that I successfully practice them, but they've served as good guidance and I wanted to share them on my blog and solicit feedback and inputs.

Set a firm agenda - Ensure this goes out before the meeting, and give people sufficient time to prepare. This is your agreement on what the focus of the meeting will be.
Assign a note taker - Preferably on a rotation basis, have the attendees take notes and distribute them. The focus of the notes is best served by capturing key updates, decisions made, and action items.
Track follow-ups - Review follow-ups from previous meetings to ensure focus on execution is not lost
Carve out micro-meetings - Carve out blocks of time (15 minutes for example)for smaller self-contained topics such as updates on certain initiatives.
Rotate timings - Especially in today's globalized world, where we have attendees from multiple timezones, someone at one end of the spectrum lands up having to wake up early or stay up late. Encouraging rotation of the meeting times (for instance, once a quarter) ensures balance.
Discourage politics, use data - This is particularly hard especially without sufficient data, but it is important to drive discussions with focus on customer feedback data, and not a culture around just personal relationships.
Stick to the clock - Says it all.
Seperate strategic topics from tactical updates - Often, I tend to see that especially weekly meetings which mix tactical and strategic topics become tactical in nature with people just sharing updates. If that happens, I've found it useful to either have a seperate meeting on the strategic topic, or to just have 2 weekly meetings. This facilitates a tighter, focused tactical meeting and a more creative discussion on strategic topics.

Are there tips you'd like to add to this list? How do you usually run your meetings? Are there stories (well run meetings, and/or meetings gone bad) that you'd like to share?

Birthday gift for Monami - Ma Belle!!!

2008-06-13T11:31:00.001-07:00

We have a new addition - my gift to Monami for her birthday! A golden retriever puppy! Although her birthday was early May, we didnt get around to pup hunting until two weeks back since I had been out of the country travelling over weekends. We were initially keen on adopting a stray or orphaned pup, giving it the shots it needs and raising it with us, but after giving it much thought, we decided to consider that for a second pup someday once we had experience raising one.
When my parents visited the last weekend of May, we went over to the Lasrado's, a breeder recommended to us by the Mysore Kennel Club. Monami was initially torn between picking a German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever, but once she saw the goldies, she had made up her mind. :-)

Of the two little furballs on her lap, Ma Belle is the one on her left. The pups were only 25 days old though, and so we had to return the next week so that the breeder could finish a litter inspection and ensure the pups were ready for adoption. Sheer coincidence - the puppy was born on May 4th, just a few days before Monami's birthday.

When we returned a week later, the pups looked like they had doubled in size! Ma Belle is the plump little one on Monami's lap, still sniffing around with quiet confidence. The smallest of the litter, she was creamy white with golden brown ears and streaks of gold down her back. The little darling with floppy ears and cutie pie face took to Monami rightaway.

Here's a cute picture of us with Ma Belle's dad before we left the Lasrado's. He was a handsome, friendly and intelligent dog, and came by to sniff around and play for a bit. Ma Belle watched on quietly from Monami's arms without a whimper while we carried her away to her new life. Incidentally, this was the same evening as the French Open final (Nadal/Federer), but I dont think I've recovered from that enough to blog about it quite yet.
But why 'Ma Belle', you may wonder? It's a play on Monami's 'firang' name (Mon Ami is 'my friend' in French, and Ma Belle is 'my beautiful'). And of course, Monami and Mabelle are two (words) that go together well (Thanks Paul). We considered a number of other names though and didnt jump to this one right away: Totoro (Japanese anime), Momo (Tibetan dumpling), Remy (Cognac/Ratatouille), Milou (Tintin's snowy white dog), Pazu (Japanese anime), Simba (Lion King) and scores of others. But Ma Belle felt the best, and she has responded to her name quickly!
Monami and I have adjusted our work schedules around the 4 feeds a day she needs - Monami leaves early and comes back early, and I leave late and work late. This isnt too bad, since this aligns pretty well with our work hours and calls. In a few months, we'll be able to cut back to 2-3 feeds a day.
She has made herself at home quickly, lapping up bowls of Cerelac and weaning food, playing with some of Monami's old stuffed toys, pooping around everywhere, nibbling at anything she can get her jaws on and sleeping 18 hours a day. What a sweetheart!

Crazy to think Federer can win

2008-06-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Extracted from Peter Bodo's insightful post on the eve of the Federer-Nadal French Open Final.

"You have to be nuts to think that Federer can't win, but you have to be downright crazy to think he will win."

On Sunday, the same two men clash for a Grand Slam title for the third consecutive year for just the second time in the Open era -- the other occasion being the three straight Wimbledon finals fought out by Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker.
But the great -- and improbable -- thing about the incipient Roland Garros final between Roger Federer and Rafal Nadal is not how similar it is to the rivalry Becker and Edberg had at Wimbledon, but how different. For one thing, Federer and Nadal have been Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, respectively, for all three of these meetings. And that's unprecedented.
For another, Becker and Edberg were both attacking players with similar styles, playing on the surface best suited to that game plan. While Nadal, once again seeded No. 2 here, probably represents the ultimate clay-court expert, Federer is more effective on faster courts. That this is a battle between a paragon of surface-specific tennis (the specialist Nadal) and the master of the all-court game (the generalist) is a fabulous bonus.
In fact, Federer's status as the second-best player on clay -- he has reached a semi and three finals in the last four years in Paris -- represents an extraordinary achievement. The annals of tennis history are choc-a-bloc with Wimbledon champions who labored like Hercules to reach one Roland Garros final (John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Michael Stich) and others (Pete Sampras, Richard Krajicek, Goran Ivanisevic, Becker) were lucky to paste the rare, one-time semi or quarterfinal finish.

The downside, of course, is it was always Nadal opposite Federer on final's day. Roland Garros and the Australian Open are the two majors that have produced the highest number of different champions (24). In the case of the red dirt major, it's because the clay surface is a great leveler on which it's impossible to grease out matches with a big serve or other weapon. All the runs you score -- or give up -- at the French Open are earned.
So what does all this bode for tomorrow? Bad news for Federer. Let's face it, Novak Djokovic may be threatening to disrupt the pecking order near the top. Nadal's history of injury, coupled with Federer's slightly substandard results earlier this year, are convenient rationalizations for someone thinking this year somehow could be different. But the on-the-ground reality emerging these past 10 days in Paris is that nothing has changed. One common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It sure looks like the dudes here have been doing the same thing over -- and over.
Nadal is clearly playing terrific tennis -- he's caught a second wind after grumbling and complaining about the brutality of the schedule a few weeks ago. Federer has been slightly more up-and-down, but he'll have the counsel of a new coach (Jose Higueras, a clay-court master) to rely on. Tip: Look for Federer to attempt using his backhand as more of a weapon (if he can) -- especially the tough but potentially rewarding big backhand down the line. Look for Nadal to try to pin Federer into the backhand corner, taking away that shot.
It's amazing how the No. 1 player and candidate for GOAT (Greatest of All Time) can go into a Grand Slam final as an enormous underdog, but that's the case here. You have to be nuts to think that Federer can't win, but you have to be downright crazy to think he will win.

Where did May go?

2008-06-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

It's been a whirlwind month of May and I've been away doing quite a bit of travelling both on a personal front and on work.

I picked up a new MotorRazr V8. It's sleek, packs a load of features, provides good sound quality and battery life, and take great pictures (Here's the first one I took - although my hand shook a bit, Monami's pic has come out well).

I spent a week in Redwood City on a short visit to our company's California headquarters. For my friends in the Bay area - unfortunately, it was a pretty hectic visit, and I didnt have time to catch up. Our office hosted a lounge event where Strictly Ballroom was screened.
It looked like fun, and I hope to see it again sometime.

Soon after I got back to Bangalore, I met up with Chemba, my college batchmate. It was the first time we were catching up after several years.

The next day, I drove down with Vasim and Vatsa to Madhu's wedding in Anantapur, a city located in A.P. about 250km from Bangalore. It was great to be at the wedding, but it was a pretty hot day and a long drive back and forth. The good part was, it prepared me for my visit the next day to my in-law's place in Nagpur. When I arrived there, it was a warm welcome - toasty 47 degrees Celsius, and it felt like an open air sauna (Now compare that with Chennai, the open air hammam). I had a great time relaxing (indoors) with family, celebrating Monami's birthday and enjoying some fine Bengali cooking.
In the middle of all this travel, Monami and I have had little success in being regular to our gym, and the results shows in our midsection. I left soon after to fly to Canada to visit our Halifax, Nova Scotia office. I was fortunate to fly JetAirways via Brussels/Toronto although it made for a longer flight, since the service was fabulous and beats Lufthansa and most American airlines anyday. The icing on the cake? Our whole company files economy, even on long haul flights, and things get hard if you are in a middle seat between two big guys. But not this time! I arrived at the airport early and got a front row aisle seat in economy. Apparently, their planes are slightly differently shaped from other carriers, and the front row aisle actually faces the aisle leading into first class. As you can tell from my outstretched legs, I had ample leg room. Bliss.

Halifax is a beautiful little maritime city - not too big, not too small, and the people are so nice. A couple of colleagues drove me around the city and down to Peggy's Cove, one of the most photographed spots in Canada. The views at sunset are stunning, and a cloudy day adds to the surreal ambience. The first photo was taken around 7PM and the second around 8PM just around sunset.

Although I left from the old Bangalore airport, the new one had opened the day before I landed. The new airport is much more spacious and well designed, with sufficient baggage belts, gates and other connecting infrastructure. The baggage distribution was a mess the day I arrived, but I hear that has been resolved. I personally feel that people's complaining about the distance to the new airport and total time involved are quite short sighted. At rush hour, it used to take me 45-60 minutes to get to the old airport from my office located 5-6 km away on airport road. The new airport takes 90 minutes, and provides a far superior and stress free experience. The airport shuttle is frequent, flexible and practical at Rs. 20o, and should alleviate most concerns for those on a budget trip. I see this as a huge step forward by the government towards building better infrastructure for the city. But the best part about the new airport move as far as we are concerned? Peace and quiet. Our apartment is close to the old airport, and it's been a great relief to be spared at last.

Other good news! SaturdayPost, the community paper promoted by my father is now 15 editions old, and has been receiving fantastic feedback from the readers. As word has started to get around, ads have started to pour in and we are planning on expanding further to other locations in Chennai.

I've been mostly oblivious to pretty much everything else going on around me, and have just been catching up. U.S. Elections. Karnataka Elections. French Open. Yves St Laurent. IPL. Federer's resurgence (fingers crossed). Earthquakes in China. Indiana Jones. Olympics. Tata buying Jaguar (How cool is that? Beats the Mittal acquisition on my list).

Get Tata to love the turtles!

2008-04-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

All,

I got this note from a friend that I wanted to share this with a broader group. I know we all get emails like this for various causes, but this one is closer to home, and comes from GreenPeace.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vipin Bhatia
Date: Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 1:10 PM
Subject: Help me save the turtles
To: sendarvimail@

Hi Arvi,

I've just written to Ratan Tata asking him to not to go ahead with building a port in Dhamra, Orissa, dangerously close to one of the world's largest sea turtle nesting grounds for the Olive Ridley Sea Turtle. I think its a good idea for Mr. Tata to move the port to another location rather than endanger the turtles.

By living up to the Tatas' environmental legacy, Ratan won't just save the highly-endangered Olive Ridley Turtles, he will also end up making Tata a better company.

The only problem is that I can't bring about that change alone. I need help from lots of people, especially you.

Please do what I've done. Write directly to Ratan by clicking here

Thanks a million,
vipin.bhatia@

Dancing to the jailbreak rock!

2008-03-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

I wasnt too keen on an iPhone since I prefer to separate my phone from personal entertainment, and I didnt want to jailbreak it for use in India since its not worth the hassle of worrying about your phone turning into a brick. However, I was totally blown away by the iPod Touch, which appeared to be something you could use anywhere in the world and so I picked one up last month. Fairly soon enough, I started to hit some challenges.

Apple's firmware updates to the iPod can only be downloaded from their iTunes Store. Their 1.1.4 release includes several useful applications like Mail, Notes, Weather, etc -but Apple is charging an additional Rs. 8000 for the update, which is absurd since its bundled in for the iPhone and is just an attempt to separate man and money.
To make things more challenging, Apple doesn't have an iTunes store for Asia - India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc (Japan however has a store). So, for someone who's bought an iPod or iPhone from an official Apple store in these countries, you cannot get updates.
In effect, this is simply pushing buyers to jailbreak their iPods.

Sorry Steve - I was gone in 45 seconds. :-)

Jukeboxtube - a jukebox for youtube

2008-02-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

Looking for a jukebox for Youtube? Check out jukeboxtube. It provides a simple way on the right pane to run a search on youtube for songs/videos you may be looking for and then click on the '+' button to add it to the jukebox on the left pane. I like the simple interface, and practicality of the site.

I also used to look up some old tennis videos on youtube - I ran searches for Rod Laver vs. Borg, Connors, etc.

Youtube is turning out to be such a gold mine. This video of Rod Laver vs. Tony Roche 1969 Australian Open SF. Laver (in white hat) when begins his journey to the Grand Slam is incredible.

Playing with wooden rackets, you see Laver strike unbelievable volleys, backhand winners and passing shots. The serve and volley game is powerful and intense - don't miss this one to see Laver at close to his best. To me, its a sad reminder of how the game has gotten dull these days with a lot baseline grinding.

Fireflies Festival of Music 2008 and Fes, Morocco

2008-02-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

I will go to Morocco someday. I just dont know when.

I cant quite describe what mysterious forces seem to draw me there. Stories of Casablanca and the famous Mediterranean beaches. The legendary street food. Sepia tinted images of tea cups and swirls of smoke from a hookah. And the Fes Festival of Sacred Music.

It likely is the Fireflies festival. Over the last couple of years, I've been fortunate to have caught the 2006 and 2007 dusk to dawn Fireflies Festival of Music hosted near Bangalore in Kaggalipura village, where Baul, Qawwali, Hindustani, Carnatic and Folk singers from across India perform in an open air natural amphitheater under a banyan tree.

(Picture above: Courtesy Jace, Fireflies 2007. See if you can spot two familiar faces!)

This year, the festival which was previously held in April is happening today (Feb 23rd) night. Unfortunately, I am several thousand miles away in Brussels and cant make it this year, and I cant quite describe how much I'll miss being there.

The nostalgia that draws me like a moth to a flame, whipping up a flurry of emotions when I remember Oikyotaan's performance (see YouTube video below)

(Video: Oikyotaan Promo)

Fireflies organizers - why did you have to move it from April to Feb!!

While we are on the topic of Morocco, here are a few blog posts about the 2007 festival in Fes:

And here's the website of the 2007 festival itself. The site for the 2008 festival does not seem to be fully up yet, but I found a program brochure which lists performers from Norway, India, Greece, Lebanon, France, Mali, Senegal, Vietnam and several other countries.

(Video: Fes Music Festival 2007)

It sounds like a dream.

Well, the festival is from June 6th-14th this year and since we've already done our share of traveling this year, its more likely I'll end up at Opus, Bangalore than Fes, Morocco. But I will make it out to Morocco. Someday. Until then, I'll just need to wait until next year's Fireflies festival in Bangalore.

Who is Alex Goggins

2008-02-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

Alex Goggins is a seven year old girl who was shot seven times in trying to defend her mother (also in picture).

"Alexis' mother, Seliethia Parker, was being threatened at gunpoint on Dec. 2 by a former boyfriend in a sport utility vehicle when her daughter jumped into her arms, police said. Bullets struck Alexis' right eye, chin and jaw. She now is blind in that eye and had several surgeries before her release."

She has lost her right eye and is still recovering from the multiple surgeries she has had to go through.

It surprises me that we havent heard too much about her story in the news.

Saturday Post - Inaugural edition in Chennai!!!!

2008-02-13T03:39:00.000-08:00

I am very happy and proud to share some great news. On Saturday, Feb 9th 2008, Vanchi Publications, launched the first edition of the Saturday Post, a community paper that caters to the Chennai suburbs.

Vanchi Publications is a print media startup founded by my father, K.V. Krishnaswamy who is also the Editor of Saturday Post. Incidentally, he has spent more than four decades as a journalist, leaving The Hindu as Deputy Editor after 27 years of service. Currently, he is associated with Industrial Economist as consulting editor. He is also a founding member of the think tank Centre for Security Analysis, Chennai.

Our objective is to start a free circulation weekly community newspaper in the triangular region in south Chennai bordered by Adyar in the north, ECR on the east and OMR in the west. Although this market segment already has established publications like Adyar Times and Appollo Times, we believe that there is an opportunity to gain a substantial market share through focus on quality content and elegant layouts anchored on the four decades of journalistic experience of the editor. For the increasing number of discerning readers in the region, this will be one aspect in which our weekly will be vitally different from the others. With the growth of the IT parks in the vicinity, there are more readers in the area with greater exposure who will appreciate community news, who are likely to be early adopters. The paper will derive its revenue solely from advertising and will be distributed through regular channels every Saturday morning.

The first edition has opened to a fabulous reception, and the response from advertisers has been very positive. The feedback about the content and quality of the paper has been very positive, and several people have requested delivery in their neighborhood.

Ultimately, as is with any community newspaper, the goal is to serve the neighborhood community and to provide readers with useful news that might not be covered by a mainstream daily. In other words, a traffic accident on East Coast Road is more important from a coverage perspective than Obama vs. Clinton. I think its a fabulous way to give back to society, and I am proud of my dad for having been able to pull this off amidst everything else he is already involved in.

Which DSLR to buy?

2008-02-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

So far, I've always had a point and shoot digicam. While I havent suddenly been bit by the shutterbug, I've increasingly been interested in learning more about photography and have been considering buying a DSLR for a while now. After doing some amount of research, here are two options I am considering:

1. Canon Digital Rebel XT

Product summary CNET's Editor's Choice

The good: The Canon Digital Rebel XT's image quality leads its class; competitive price; ultrafast start-up time; very responsive.

The bad: The Canon Rebel XT's lightweight plastic body isn't ergonomically satisfying; no spot meter; limited continuous-shooting mode, unimpressive kit lens; 1.6X lens-conversion factor.

The bottom line: The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT is an exceptionally small and lightweight camera designed for amateur digital SLR photographers, but it delivers the responsiveness and image quality you'd expect from a semipro model.

Specs: Digital camera type: SLR; Resolution: 8 megapixels; Display type: 1.8 in LCD display See full specs >>

Price range: $409.00 - $539.99

2. Nikon D80

Product summary CNET's Editor's Choice

The good: Excellent color rendition and noise levels; large feature set; highly customizable; lightning-fast performance.

The bad: Full raw editor costs extra; flash sync of 1/200 second.

The bottom line: Nikon scores big with the D80, its new 10-megapixel, sub-$1,000 dSLR.

Specs: Digital camera type: SLR; Resolution: 10.2 megapixels; Display type: 2.5 in LCD display See full specs >>

Price range: $765.00 - $899.99

In order to get some more data on the popular cameras used by the consumers globally, I also checked out Flickr's list of most popular cameras in their community. Not surprisingly, the Canon and Nikon were high on the list.

In all honestly, I'm happy with a camera with 8-10 megapixels. I dont need a 12MP monster which would suck up a lot of storage. I definitely want a camera that is a) reasonably priced, b) easy to use, c) high light sensitivity since I often taken pictures in dim light or on the move.

I've scoured the net, and found a lot of interesting articles in response to the search query 'What DSLR to buy?'. But of all of them, Philip Greenspun stands out - read it.

I'm leaning towards the Canon since I think it fits my needs sufficiently and is reasonably priced. If you own either of the two and have some advice for me on buying it in India, please let me know.

If you could have dinner with any person

2008-02-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

Question: If you could have dinner with any person, from any part of the world and from any point in time (past, present or future), a) who would that person be and b) what would you say?

A friend of mine posed this, and it intrigued me so much I thought I'd post it and get your thoughts on it. Whom would you choose, and what would you say?

Anniversary

2008-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

We just celebrated our anniversary with a relaxing few days at the lovely Victor Exotica resort in Goa, spending endless lazing around in the pool, reading a few books, watching the Oz Open, and walking down the beach.

We had some challenges initially getting our reservations done through Footlooseyatra, who were asking for an additional 2% and also accidentally had booked us to Ooty instead of Goa :-) I instead called Victor Exotica directly to make the booking. They were very helpful, and gave us a pool facing room (the one with the balcony on the right in the picture). Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the pool, and my back is burnt charcoal.

I last stayed at Victor about 2-3 years back when my buddy Laurent had visited me from the States, and we travelled up the coast from Allepey. Amazingly enough, the prices and service at the resort havent changed much despite the drastic differences you see across the rest of North Goa. I would very highly recommend the place for anyone planning a relaxing weekend trip since their package with food included is quite reasonable in comparison to other resorts. They have no internet access (period. forget wireless), which I was quite happy to forego and stay disconnected from the wired world for a bit (although my crackberry craving got the better of me eventually).

I also got started with reading former President Abdul Kalam's autobiography, "Wings of Fire". It's been fascinating so far, and I'll write back once I'm done reading. Incidentally, Kalam has been teaching at my alma PSG Tech as a visitor professor.

And finally, I watched somewhat ruefully as my prediction that Djokovic will beat Federer at the Ozzie Open came true. It's a breath of fresh air to see players like Tsonga and Djokovic. I loved Tsonga and his attacking game - it's like watching the Brazilians play soccerFor a moment in the fourth set, I though Tsonga may have pushed Djokovic around the court a bit more, taking advantage of his mobility challenges, and have gotten his nose ahead. While that didnt happen, both of them emerged as champions today.

It should be interesting see how Roger responds to the new challengers. To me, he'll need to focus on three things over the next few years:

Building on his fitness levels further as Agassi did mid-career to improve endurance and ability to avoid injury
Play a more attacking game to close out points faster, especially using his serve, since he's up against some young guns now who are a step ahead of him, or soon will be.
Start to focus more on the key Slams and conserve his energy
Ok - lets make it four things. Watch that Tonga-Nadal game a few dozen times - the game plan with which Tonga attacked Nadal's backhand with swinging serves and then volleyed into the open court is one which has been talked about for ages and has now been executed to perfection

Djokovic will beat Federer

2008-01-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

Djokovic will beat Federer. But Shhhhh for now.

I have a good feeling about Nole and his all court game.. Let's wait and see how 2008 plays out for this man.

Who is Bhagiram Barman

2008-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

On November 24th, 2007, a young Adivasi girl was stripped naked on the streets of Beltola, Guwahati in Assam, and several others Adivasis were beaten up and tortured by a mob of local residents, leaving one person dead and several injured. The locals claim the Adivasis started the trouble by damaging vehicles and breaking shops in the area. The conflicts between the city people and the tribals has been around for a while now to the point where it doesnt matter who started it first since ultimately, common people suffer.

I cant quite describe in words how upsetting these stories were when I read them and saw some of the videos on youtube. Has the very fabric of humanity been torn to such shreds?

But I just read this - On January 30th, the Adivasi student leaders shall be taking the girl along with them to a court hearing in front of Justice (retd) R.K. Manisena Singh Inquiry Commission. I'm sure that the human rights violators will be dealt with. But for the girl, these are difficult and painful scars, and I can only hope that time will be healer, and I wish her all the strength and fortitude to overcome the challenges ahead.

I also learnt today about the identity of the man who saved her from the mobs while she ran through the streets. His name is Bhagiram Barman.

Bhagiram Barman runs a teashop in Guwahati. For those of you who may have seen the 90's flick Hero, Bhagiram comes across to me much more of the dubious Dustin Hoffman than charming Andy Garcia.

But when the girl was running down the streets, being harassed and beaten by the angry mob, it was Bhagiram who had the courage to offer her the shirt he was wearing and give her cover so she could escape down an alleyway. Other people in nearby houses were too afraid of the mob to help her, and it must have taken immense courage and valor for Bhagiram. I dont know much else about Bhagiram, or the girl, whose anonymity has understandably been maintained, but I am deeply touched by this incident.

This reminds me of another sad incident last year - one of attempted female infanticide, where a dog rescued a 2-day old baby allegedly buried alive by her grandparents in Andhra Pradesh. 2-day old. Buried alive. What is this world coming to?

Monami on cover of Cosmo!

2008-01-13T10:50:00.000-08:00

Monami is on the cover of Cosmopolitan!!!

As a clever reader of my blog, there's no fooling you, and you've likely already guessed this was just a gag :-) We found this site called Magmypic.com off Prasan's blog and have been having a bit of fun.

Here are a few funny samples - Me at the Kremlin, on the cover of Life. Monami on Cosmo (with the web sites watermark restored to the bottom right corner), and Rini on Vogue.

Health-wise, I havent been doing too well lately. I fell sick in Brussels for a whole week with a wierd viral fever which left me completely drained and a few kilos less (hmm, guess its not a bad thing then). The Belgian doctor was great, but somehow his antibiotics didnt do the job. I got back to Chennai to spend the holidays with Monami & family, during which we visited another doctor and went through another round of antibiotics, which at the end of the day has left me with a weak stomach and immunity. I'll need to be careful over the next month to ensure I get back to being fighting fit.

I found an interesting blog off SepaiMutiny that I've started following. Dr Khandelwal is an Indian psychiatrist who is posted in the Maitri station in Antartica. Did you know that India has had a base there since 1989, and expeditions since 1981? He is doing research on how the stress of the expedition is impacting the psychological health and cognitive functioning of the team.

He has posted more interesting pictures like the one above off his blog here, as well as several interesting ancecotes about everything from how to survive with minimum water to a visit to a Russian station where the team leader there talks about challenges managing the people dynamics in the gruelling conditions.

I think its wonderful to learn from the varied experiences of people, and Dr Khandelwal's posts offer a uniquely Indian perspective into life in Antartica described in a simple unassuming style.

Another fine blog is Sanjeev Himachali's. It's perhaps the best blog I've read so far by an Indian HR person, with several insights on human relationship management which are relevant to the Indian context. One post I found touching was his story of how he overcame his early career challenges. As Sanjeev says, 'At the end, I only like to say that, "It is easy to give-up but it is very difficult to continue"'.

We picked up a pirated internet print DVD (Rs 50) off CMH Road and watched Taare zameen par, the recent movie made by Aamir Khan about the challenges faced by a child having dyslexia. I felt the movie was respite from the usual Bollywood masala mix, and was very moving. Aamir, who dominates most of the second half, slightly oversimplified dyslexia. But then, it would have been hard for the movie to fly with a broader audience without that.

My dad is planning to start-up a new free circulation community newspaper in south Chennai. We have registered a new company, and expect to launch the paper soon.

And in time to blow my blues away, the Australian Open starts tomorrow!

P.S: Please let me know what you think about Dr Khandelwal and Sanjeev's blogs.

In Memoriam: Sir Edmund Hillary

2008-01-11T02:13:00.000-08:00

In Memoriam: Sir Edmund Hillary
(20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008)

Hillary has inspired me not just through his legendary mountaineering exploits, but his philanthropy. He spent much of his life helping the Sherpas, and was also the Ambassador to India for a short stint. I saved a 5 dollar note from my 2005 New Zealand trip as a little souvenir with his profile.

“I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.” - Sir Edmund Hillary

2008 - Carpe Diem!

2008-01-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

What a crazy, crazy world we live in! Time flies by through the year and the best time to reconnect with your friends is often through a new year greeting seeking confirmation (Dude, are you alive?), interspersed with executive summary style status updates (BTW, did I tell you I joined a non-profit?), or worse yet, a cut/pasted greeting (Long time no see - just wanted to wish you a happy new year) over a mass-email.

In case you were wondering, I've been guilty of all of these over the years! But now, what better alibi than to try to get away with an update to my blog and ask you how you missed it ;-)

2007 was perhaps the busiest year of my life so far. I continued to work at SupportSoft, the organization I had worked with for a few years in California and had later helped setup their Indian operations. The India office has grown now to over 100 people, I can hardly believe that back in May 2003, I was out hunting for BOO/BOT partners to explore setting up our virtual extension and we were just trying to get our office registered and trying to pick a name for the local company. The focus of this year was on growing our Asia operations as well as the revenue contribution of our Global Delivery Center, which delivered a little over $4 million to our regions across the year. I have been fortunate to work with a highly talented and capable team, who continue to blow me away by their leadership, innovation, and I learn from each one of them every day. And finally, I have spent the last couple of months in Europe working with the regional team on a strategic plan for the coming year, which has been a fascinating experience, working with diverse issues from organization design to cultural challenges.

But the biggest highlight of the year has to be my wedding to Monami on a lovely evening in Nagpur (see invite here). For most of the traditional Bengali wedding ceremony, I struggled to mime after the priest whose Sanskrit had a strong Bong accent, and Monami couldnt stop laughing all the way through. Interestingly, she didnt have to say any of the wedding vows, and you may wonder what that bodes for me!

The other memorable moments have been our travels - we honeymooned in Hawaii, but also travelled through San Francisco, Vegas, a special return trip to Hampi, Gokarna, Mahabalipuram, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Brussels, Amsterdam, Ypres, Brugge, and Spa.

Of all the trips, the ones dearest to me are our snorkeling adventures in Hanauma bay in Hawaii,

and being surrounded by World War veterans in Ypres, the site of the bloodiest WW1 fighting during the memorial service on Armistice Day.

Although my busy schedule hasnt let me keep up with writing food reviews for the local dailies, my food blog has been attracting quite some attention, and I've been contacted by various journos and publishers inviting articles and requesting advice on local establishments. I sure hope to do better justice to my writing over the course of the coming year.

As many of you know, I'm a sucker for live music, and try and catch as many concerts as I can, particularly smaller more intimate performances. For the second year running, I attended the Fireflies festival of Sacred Music, a dusk to dawn all-night concert in outskirts of Bangalore featuring several artists - rock, jazz, ghazals, carnatic, hindustani, baul, qawali, etc. If there's one concert you go to in 2008 - make it to Fireflies!

A Mac lover was born, and I finally made the switch over, buying a Mac Mini after much deliberation. Now that I've been using it for a few months now, I cant understand what took me look long to make the leap.

I've also been catching up with some reading finally. One book that I'd single out - Rob, my boss, gave me "Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business", a lovely read about how differences in global cultures affects how we do business and lead teams. While it is written from the perspective of a western reader, its nuggets of wisdom are essential for aspiring global leaders in your organization.

And few things can help me unwind as much as a hard game of tennis. Or, on a lazier day, lying back and watch Roger play. His game is such eye candy, and I hope we'll see some close games with Rafa and Nole this year. And oh, I was in Belgium while Sampras played Roger in Malaysia and man would I have loved to have been there to watch that. Speaking of sports, Monami is an expert swimmer and I've been getting some neat lessons under her tutelage.

This year had its share of lowlights too. Monami and I had to cancel a much awaited holiday trip to Europe during the Christmas holidays due to her visa not coming through in time, which was disappointing and stressful since we'd been planning it for a while and had close friends who had made a trip to Paris to meet us. We landed up spending the holidays in a tent by the beach near Mahabalipuram, and couldnt have been happier in the end - a reminder of how the simplest things are often the ones that matter the most. Work wise, our company went through a difficult period after a tough quarter, where some talented people were let go of, and while running a business requires such decisions, these things are never easy. And then, my dad has been pushing pretty hard to launch a community newspaper, which got indefinitely delayed due to registration problems due to the Delhi bureaucracy. Fortunately, he got the clearance two weeks back, and we expect to have a big launch in the next few months!

But most of all, I'm delighted to recall the many personal and professional milestones my friends and family have reached - 3 of you got married, 5 of you had babies, including one set of twins, 4 of you completed PhDs, one of you climbed to the summit of Cotopaxi in Ecuador, four started companies, one interviewed Stephen King and Paul McCartney, one got venture funding, two of you made movies, a gifted musician has been performing across the country, a performer choreographed and danced in several shows, a bike designer won two awards, and one of you has been teaching at a school for the underprivileged. Even as we are spread out today, oceans apart, you all inspire me every day! Thanks for all your support.

I'll leave you with an extract from the Latin poem by Horace -

"Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero".

"Even as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future"

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008, Everyone! Have a great year ahead.

Ratatouille in one word - Yummy!

2008-01-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

To me, Pixar's animated movie, Ratatouille, is perhaps the very best of 2007. I watched it on a long haul flight, and was fascinated by the brilliant storytelling, imaginative animation, attention to detail, witty dialogs and visual elements. It's a simple theme - we have a rat who wants to be a chef. And of course, no kitchen wants a rat, and the conflict that ensues is hilarious.

The main protagonist, Remy, is inspired by a deceased French Chef Gusteau's motto, "Anyone can cook", which the humorless vulture-like food critic Anton Ego later realizes actually means "Not everyone can become a great chef, but a great chef can come from anywhere".

The scenes involving Remy and his fellow rats are pretty funny.

Remy: Hey, I brought you something to...
[sees Emile eating garbage]
Remy: AH! NO, NO, NO, NO! SPIT THAT OUT RIGHT NOW!
[Emile obeys]
Remy: I have got to teach you about food. Close your eyes.
[Emile obeys; Remy hands out piece of cheese]
Remy: Now take a bite of this...
[Emile snarfs the cheese]
Remy: No, no, no! Don't just hork it down!
Emile: Too late.

But above all, there's this lovely scene where Remy first takes a bite of a piece of cheese, which immediately creates an upbeat swirl of flavors. He then separately takes a bite of the strawberry and feels a more delicate flavor. And then when he combines the two together, they create a brilliant epiphany that sparks fireworks that dance and sparkle in his mind.

In this one lucid scene, Pixar has captured the joy of combining flavors, the quintessential feeling of delight that floods my mind when I sample food during one of the reviews I do as a hobby.

Sigh - I just hope the chefs I meet dont think I'm like Anton :-)

Watch Ratatouille - you will not be disappointed. While we keep hearing of animation film kids like that adults might enjoy, this is definitely one for all. And oh, if you may care for sampling some decent ratatouille, check out Road Trip in Indiranagar.

Have any of you seen Ratatouille yet?

Polar bears

2007-12-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

There's enough said and written about global warming and its impacts. But these pictures I found online about polar bears were quite touching. They are finding it increasingly hard to find food in their natural habitats, and scientists believe their numbers will reduce by 2/3rds by 2050 unless remedial measures are put in place.

Tennis season blues, Federer's Peak, and Justine Henin Comics

2007-12-06T21:02:00.000-08:00

It's December, and the tennis season for 2007 is pretty much over. As you know, the season runs Jan-Nov every year. Although some critics feel it would be good to shorten it, I dont quite agree since I feel tennis is different from other sports in terms of its global nature and the conditions of play. I do however agree that players need help in balancing their schedules and commitments so that they dont burn out.

CNN Asia recently published an insightful interview with Federer - read the whole story here.

Here's an interesting excerpt:

R (Interviewer): The French Open continues to elude you. One imagines that the next time that you play you will probably be up against Rafael Nadal again. Does that mean it's never gonna happen for you do you think?
Federer: No, I disagree. Actually this year's been some sort of a breakthrough year in some ways. You might not understand why because of me being at the top for so long but I won the Australian Open this year for the first time without losing a set in the Grand Slam which was a great start to the season then I've beaten Rafael Nadal for the first time on clay in Hamburg just prior to the French Open which was a big breakthrough for me so I've beaten him now on all surfaces so that gives me great hopes for next year and this is why I will always believe and I'm sure I can do it, winning the French, also if I have to go through Rafael, then it's not always the case, the draws change all the time.

It's insightful to look at it from that perspective - that Federer sees this as having been sort of a 'breakthrough year' in his having been able to dominate Slams without losing a set and having been able to beat Nadal on clay. To me, this was perhaps the year where although Federer won 3 of the Slams, his authority has been the most challenged. Nadal has made a point - he can win on grass. And Novak "Nole" Djokovic has emerged as one of the most exciting new players, who has a lot to learnt, but has a winner in him. Was Federer downplaying his fears? Has he already 'peaked'?

Here's another interesting tid-bit - while Monami and I were at the Comic Art museum in Brussels, I noticed this Dutch language comic on Justine Henin! Belgians are proud of their star player, and it shows. BTW, check out these pics of Justine with Sinter Klaas yesterday.

If I had been in India last month, I would have given an arm and a leg and have made the trip to Kuala Lumpur to watch Sampras and Federer play!! In case you havent, check out their 2001 game together.

Sigh. I cant wait for the 2008 tennis season to start!

Voila! Travel pictures!

2007-11-22T02:15:00.000-08:00

There's so much to write about our travels and experiences in Europe over the last month, but there just hasnt been enough time!!!!! For now - here are a few pictures...

Brussels

Moules, Frites and Beer near the Grand Place :) And the lovely Comic Art Museum.

Brugges

The little medieval and romantic city. Monami took the modern art picture below, and it was chosen by Schmaps.com for their online travel guide! And that's me about to dig into frog's legs for lunch. They were yum :)

Amsterdam

The last time I had been to Amsterdam was about 10 years back; and it was so much fun to bicycle around the city avoiding trams, cars and other bikers ;) We spent most of the day at the Van Gogh and Anne Frank museums. We also visited Madame Tussauds and goofed around for a bit as you can see.

Spa
The city that launched a thousand spas!!!! The place where spas began.. Who would have known that little Belgium had such lovely weekend retreats? We spent the weekend at the Thermes spa, a natural spring that you get to by going up the funicular. We also discovered a lovely B&B that I'm sure we'll visit again.

Ypres
We visited Ypres, the site of some of the bloodiest carnage in WW1 on Rememberance/Armistice day and were touched deeply by the memorial service offered to the World War I soliders. Several aging war veterans in the crowds gave the place an ambiance I shall never forget. The beautiful buildings in the pictures were completely destroyed in the war and then completely rebuilt by the residents using older photographs. Pride. Dignity. And triumph of the human spirit.

Where is Arvi - in Belgium for few months

2007-10-13T02:54:00.000-07:00

Many of you know this by now, but for those whom I might have missed talking to or emailing (Sorry - its been a few hectic weeks!), Monami and I have just moved to Brussels, Belgium for a few months. I will be helping support the growth of the European business with their go-forward plan and helping empower and groom an extended leadership team to help Philippe, the regional director there.

I will still be involved with the APAC business management, albeit not on a day to day basis. I'm not worried since we now have a capable and mature extended leadership team in place in Bangalore that is doing a terrific job in my absence.

The move has been extremely hectic and stressful for Monami and I, literally turning our lives upside down over the space of a month. As I was tied down end of Q3 work and Q4 planning (sigh!), she had to handle most of the coordination needed with putting our stuff into storage (Narayani packers were excellent!), closing out utilities, rental leases, and the zillion other things needed for an international move. We've received tremendous assistance from our friends, family and colleagues without whom this would not have been possible.

And so, we got here on Oct 7th, just a day ahead of my birthday and quickly got busy getting setup at the service apartment we are staying at (click here for address on Google Maps for sending us post cards ;-))

View Larger Map

The perk of this temporary move will be the opportunity for us to get around and visit nearby places in Europe since Paris, Amsterdam, Florence and other lovely cities are just a few hours away by train. However, the trip is by no means a European holiday for me, as there's a lot of work to be done and the weeks have already been quite hectic. Monami continues to work her same job, interacting with her team remotely from the apartment. In her spare time, she hopes to join French classes and immerse herself in comic and graphic novels (Belgium has been home to some of the world's best comic artists). I've brought my tennis racket along, but I'm not too sure yet if I'll actually get around to playing.. but then, who knows?

And so, we are off to another brief adventure... If you are in Europe in the next few months, please give us a shout!

The Simple Pleasures of Life

2007-09-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

Amazingly enough, many of the best things in life come simple and easy.
O Discovering the Flight Simulator in Google Earth - this is probably the best Easter egg ever. It may not be the best simulator game, but its pretty amazing considering the data is real. Try flying off Kathmandu over the Himalayas as well as from San Francisco across the Bay on a high speed line where rendering will be smooth. Also check out planetary models in Sky mode.
O Watching Bheja Fry on a tiring long haul flight left me with a smile on my face, and a fuzzy feeling left by movie magic. Vinay Pathak (see pic) steals the show in this simple and delightful film (remake of a French movie).
O Forget Hollywood and Bollywood. YouTube video of Battle at Kruger National Park - kidnappings, in-fighting, tug-o-war, action stunts, vengeance, and a happy ending for a young buffalo - the Animal Kingdom has it all.
O A bag of rice can save the day. Or at least help recover a wet mobile, as I found out after I accidentally slipped (sigh - this is embarrassing!) into a river. After blowdrying, huffing and puffing, attempting to dismantle it, and then just praying, I found this grain of truth (bad pun, I know).
O Fun little multi-burst shots off my camera while Monami and I were at Gokarna for a quick weekend retreat. The trip cost us barely Rs. 2,500/- all in all including the bus, food and lodging, and was great value.

IT skills that will get you hired today

2007-09-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

Wonder which IT skills are in demand in the job market? Here are some excerpts from an insightful article from ComputerWorld on IT skills that are much sought after right now.

Machine learning. As companies work to build software such as spam-filtering, collaborative-filtering and fraud-detection applications that seek patterns in jumbo-size data sets, there is more need for people with machine-learning expertise, or the ability to design and develop algorithms and techniques to improve a computer’s performance. Demand is expanding for data mining, statistical modeling and data structure skills, among others. “Companies are snapping up these skills as fast as they can grab them,” Scott says.

Mobile applications. The race to deliver content over mobile devices is akin to the wild days of the Internet in the ’90s, says Sean Ebner, vice president of professional services at Spherion Pacific Enterprises LLC, a recruitment firm in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. With devices like BlackBerries and Treos becoming more important as business tools, companies need people who are adept at extending applications like ERP, procurement and expense approval systems to mobile devices, he says.

Wireless networking. With the proliferation of de facto wireless standards such as Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth, securing transmissions is top of mind for IT employers, says Neill Hopkins, vice president of skills development at the Computing Technology Industry Association. “Companies are concerned about how these [wireless technologies] all fit together and the security risks, which are much bigger than on wired networks,” he says.

Human-computer interface. There will be a growing demand for skills in designing user interfaces for Web and desktop applications. Thanks to companies like Apple Inc., “consumers are increasingly seeing well-designed products,” Scott says. “Why shouldn’t they demand that in every piece of software they use?”

Project management. Project management is a perennial hot skill, but the new wrinkle is the need to demonstrate actual expertise in this arena. “Job reqs are coming in for ‘true project managers,’ not just people who have that title,” says Grant Gordon, managing director at staffing firm Intronic Solutions Group in Overland Park, Kan. Employers want in-the-trenches experience, Gordon says. “The right candidates are fewer and farther between, and those that are there can be more picky on salaries and perks,” he says.

General networking. No matter where you work in IT, you can’t escape the network, so non-networking professionals need a basic understanding of networking concepts. At the very least, they should brush up on basics, such as TCP/IP, Ethernet and fiber optics, and have a working knowledge of distributed and networked computing.

Network convergence. With more companies implementing voice over IP, there’s a call for network administrators who understand LANs, WANs, voice technologies, the Internet and how they all converge.

Open-source programming. There’s been an uptick in employers interested in hiring open-source talent

Business intelligence. Momentum is also building around BI, creating demand for people who know how to apply technologies from companies like Cognos Inc., Business Objects SA and Hyperion Solutions Corp. to the business. “Clients are making significant investments in business intelligence,” Ebner says. “But they don’t need pure technicians creating scripts and queries. To be a skilled data miner, you need hard-core functional knowledge of the business you’re trying to dissect.”

Embedded security. The trend to integrate security into day-to-day operations has yielded a surge in employers looking for security skills and certifications in all IT job applicants.

If I was to pick three of these that can make a huge difference in the future, they would be

Human-Computer interface, although I see that evolving as well as the concept of an OS and its apps start to blur with the network we work in.
Network convergence, wireless and mobile - relevant as all three are independently, they are also closely interrelated and will play a key role in defining how applications are "aware" of each other and work together.
Business Intelligence, although has been much talked about for ages is coming of age due to better data mining tools and techniques.

And in many ways, skills in these areas shall be more 'transportable', enabling you to let them evolve through technology changes without always having to play catch up.

Federer's 12 - all his trophies!

2007-09-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

And so here you have it all... Federer's 12, and in all likelihood a sequel and more coming soon...

His Grand Slam titles in order, top to bottom: US Open 07, Wimbledon 07, Australian 07, US Open 06, Wimbledon 06, Australian 06, US Open 05, Wimbledon 05, US Open 04, Wimbledon 04, Australian 04, Wimbledon 03

India's greatest President to teach at PSG

2007-08-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

"A developed India by 2020, or even earlier, is not a dream. It need not be a mere vision in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can all take up - and succeed." - A P J Abdul Kalam, twelfth President of India, from 2002 to 2007.

I read Kalam's book "2020" back in early 2000, and have keenly followed his lectures and writings ever since. The book is dedicated to a young girl whom Kalam met and asked as "what is your dream" for which the young girl replied "I want to live in a developed India".

Kalam, whose term as president ended this July has announced that he is going to teach at PSG College of Technology as a visiting professor. As you may have guessed by now, PSG Tech is my alma mater where I got my B.S. from, and I was quite thrilled to hear this since I'm sure Kalam will be a hit with students.

To me at least, Kalam has been our greatest president ever, and a strong source of inspiration.

Kalam to teach at PSG
Sunday August 26 2007 14:14 IST
COIMBATORE: Former President A P J Abdul Kalam has agreed to teach at PSG Institutions as a visiting professor.

“I will take three to four classes this year, for about 60 students each.

The subjects that I will concentrate on are mostly nano-science, nano-technology and also the influence of society in knowledge areas,’’ he announced here on Saturday.

He wanted the undergraduate, post-graduate and the Ph.D students of PSG to take up the study of the implementation of Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) as a business proposition in the different areas around Coimbatore and added that there was already one Sakthi PURA in Pollachi.

Only education and women’s empowerment would help the ranking of the country in the Global Competitiveness Report wherein India figured at the 43rd position.
(Full article here)

Jai Hind!

2007-08-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

"India of today", Watercolour by M.F.Husain, done for 'The Hindu' on the occasion of 60 years of Independence

Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer

2007-07-22T01:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a little insightful gem straight from Guy's blog - an interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of twelve books.Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford.

He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and he has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, and IESE in Barcelona.

Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of Audible Magic and SonoSite (SONO) and writes a monthly column on management issues entitled “The Human Factor” for the 650,000 circulation Time-Warner business magazine, Business 2.0

The interview is based on his latest book:What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management.

Question: Why do companies do stupid things?
Answer: First, they ignore feedback effects. There has recently been a lot of interest, and apparent surprise, that programmers in India now cost a lot and their wages have been rising rapidly. Did people forget supply and demand? If everyone moves work to India, what did companies think would happen? Or, to take another example, when companies cut their retirement benefits, and people can not afford to retire, guess what, they won’t.

Second, companies often ignore the interdependence or connections between actions in one part and those in another. So, even as some departments are trying to cut the costs of benefits, others are worried about recruiting and retaining enough qualified people. Maybe the parts should work together.

Third, many companies presume that incentives are the answer to everything, and have a very mechanistic model of human behavior. That is also incorrect.
Question: What can companies do to get smarter?

Answer: Companies learn just like people learn—by trying new things and seeing what happens. That requires, first, a tolerance for failure, since by definition, learning means doing things you aren’t very good at.

Second, it requires structured self-reflection—after-action or after-event reviews so that instead of having one year of experience repeated 20 times, people and companies actually accumulate learning over time.
Question: How do you stop the misdeeds (for example, Enron) in organizations?

Answer: What is interesting is that there are few social sanctions—as contrasted with legal or financial ones—for bad behavior. Executives who have served jail time are back on TV and are still celebreties. More to the point, they aren’t shunned by their colleagues.

The prevailing mood seems to be, as long as people retain enough wealth, they can buy their way back by donating time and money. If we are serious about enforcing norms, then there have to be real sanctions. In the military academies, violations of important norms are met with expulsion or social ostracism—eating alone, for instance. Not so, not yet, for the most part in the corporate world.
Question: How do you get a company to behave in a truthful manner?

Answer: You start by having leaders tell the truth—which includes admitting what they don’t know and what they have done wrong. It is impossible to manage successfully if you don’t know what is actually going on. But a lie takes two people: the person who tells the lie and the individual who signals that s/he wants to hear it. So, you don’t want to punish people for surfacing problems or telling you bad news. You don’t want to “shoot the messenger,” but thank them for bringing issues and concerns to light.
Question: What’s the best way to improve customer relations?

Answer: This is almost too simple—actually take care of customers! I am sure we have all heard the recorded message, “you’re call is very important to us.” Well, if the call were important to the company who has recorded the message, maybe they would answer it in some reasonable time instead of either playing music or bombarding the caller with advertising messages. When you make a mistake, fix it and admit responsibility. Tell the truth. By the way, the airlines seem to be the worst at all of this, with a few exceptions.
Question: I think I know what you will say, but what’s more important: CRM software or recruiting and training?

Answer: Before you can manage customer relationships through some software product, you first need to build those relationships. And relationships are still largely built through people. That’s why the most important three feet of real estate in retail—or in many industries—is the distance between the customer and the sales associate or individual who is serving that customer. Hiring the best people who are likely to stay, and investing in their training, will build relationships that CRM can manage. Without taking the first steps, there is nothing there.
Question: What is the key to global competitiveness?

Answer: The data on this are clear—companies choose to locate their R & D facilities on the basis of the availability of talent. This is more important than tax abatements and certainly much more important than rates of pay. If location was determined by cost, Silicon Valley would be empty. The best way to build human capital is through education—both elementary and secondary as well as higher education that is truly world class. This costs money, but it is worth it.
Question: What is the proper role for a CEO?

Answer: To develop others and their talents and to create an environment in which people can do their best and want to. It is not to make all the decisions or, like some kind of “sun king,” absorb all the light and the attention.

In fact, sometimes, as the Grammy-award winning Orpheus Chamber orchestra shows, the best leadership is less leadership. No seed can grow if it is dug up and examined every week, and for people to innovate and get things done, sometimes they need some time and space and resources.
Question: How do you turnaround a company?

Answer: As the late Peter Drucker said, there is no business without a customer. Turning around a company is mostly about providing people a great value proposition—giving them more than they expect. Better products, services, more attention, than the competition. It is hard to do any of this if you lay people off. People—the best people—will head for the exits. And you can’t cut your way to success, because it’s a strategy that’s too easily duplicated. Look at Singapore Airlines—they are able to charge more for the same flights because they provide such a superior product and experience. I wish more companies would figure this out.
Question: But what if it’s no fault of the company and people just aren’t buy, flying, etc…then what do you do?

If you are going to lay people off, do it once, tell the specific people who will be let go, do it with compassion and generosity, and get on with it. But often organizations can find ways of avoiding layoffs, such as reducing everyone’s work hours a little, reducing variable components of pay, or finding ways to capture market share from competitors.

If Southwest Airlines could come out of 9/11 without doing layoffs in an industry, airlines, that was devastated, then I am not sure they are ever necessary. But the typical way they are done—announcement of a number so that everyone is worried and distracted, and often doing the layoffs by escorting people out the door so they can’t say good-by, leaves “survivor guilt” and demotivated people.
Question: What are the characteristics of a good work week and vacation policy?

Answer: We live in a world where ideas and innovation are paramount. But people can’t be creative if they are exhausted. And when people work when they are tired, they make mistakes. If we have learned anything from the quality movement, it is that the cost of finding and fixing mistakes is greater than the cost of preventing them. So, give people time off. And, by the way, the younger generations want a life as well as work. Work-life balance is a great way to attract—and retain—great people.
Question: What are the characteristics of a good incentive plan?

Answer: Incentives should be large enough to provide an occasion for celebrating success but not so large as to distort behavior. And incentives can include recognition and things other than money. Companies get themselves into trouble all the time by being too clever with their incentives.

Stock options did reward leaders for getting the price of the stock up—it’s just that it was often for a short period, and was accomplished by distorting earnings. Be careful what you pay for—you might just get it.
Question: What does it say about a company if it asks a candidate with twenty years of experience to submit school transcripts?

Answer: To tell you the truth, neither hiring on the basis of a resume—the positions people have held and the credentials they have acquired—nor hiring on the basis of a transcript makes much sense. In the first case of the 20 years of experience, you need to ascertain not just what the person has done but also how well s/he has done it—something that is difficult to do in a world in which lawyers will tell previous employers not to say much—and more importantly, what they are capable of doing in the future.

Every CEO was CEO for the first time, which meant that some company had to decide that “previous experience”—in this instance, in the CEO role—was not a requirement, and similarly for every other position. In the second case, transcripts mostly reveal whether people can succeed in school. There is little evidence in the one area I know best, business schools and MBAs, that grades in school predict subsequent career success, and to the extent there are positive correlations found in some studies, they are incredibly small.

The answer, in terms of hiring, is to first of all be clear about the relevant behaviors and then test for those behaviors, either using work samples or else interview questions that probe how people have handled or would handle relevant situations.
Question: What role should budgets play in the management of an organization?

Answer: Budgets should be general guidelines. As hard and fast rules, they become subject to “gaming.” People delay doing sensible things, push expenses around, hide sales, etc. And also, budgets often just reward the best forecasters and negotiators. It is possible to make “budget” as you lose market share and go broke, as long as the targets are set low enough.
Question: How should people judge a company’s results?

Answer: By comparison to its peers and by comparison to what its own aspirations are. Companies, as the balanced scorecard notes, depend on customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and others in the ecosystem. It is wrong to give one of those groups priority over the others. Brand loyalty and employee loyalty are both real assets, even if not reflected on balance sheets and income statements.

Just look at Apple Computer with respect to products and DaVita, the kidney dialysis company, which has few open nursing positions because it is a great place to work. As Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines recognized long ago, if you take care of your people, they will take care of the customers, who will keep coming back, which will make the shareholders happy. It is all interrelated.
Question: What role should strategic planning play in the management of an organization?

Answer: Doing the right thing is important, which is where strategy comes in. But doing that thing well—execution—is what sets companies apart. After all, every football play is designed to go for a huge gain. The reason it doesn’t is because of execution—people drop balls, miss blocks, go to the wrong place, and so forth. So, success depends on execution—on the ability to get things done.

Marketing Practice - Excellent blog on Indian Brands

2007-07-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

You'd love reading Harish's blog - Marketing Practice, an excellent online resource on Indian brands recommended by Guy Kawasaki.

It's a well compiled collection of marketing book review, analysis of brands from various sectors, marketing statistics, and fun facts.

Order of the Phoenix Lacks Magic

2007-07-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

We finally watched the much awaited Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night at Inox! Compared to the first couple of movies which were children's films, this one is more mainstream, showing the darker moments of Harry's anger and strife, his first coming of age kiss, the first bloody action sequences (still tame though compared to the violence in most movies) in the series, and more complex character development. However, the movie was a little disjointed, leaving you wish the first half had moved a lot faster and the second had been longer, while still explaining a few important things a bit more. The brilliant story-telling that has been the hallmark of the series seems to have gone astray. I liked the movie overall, but I'd give it only an average 3/5.

At the end of the film, you cant but help feel like the production had been stifled by rules set by Dolores Umbridge herself, leaving you wondering where the magic has gone. Blimey, Harry!

Sigur Ros

2007-07-15T01:40:00.000-07:00

I discovered the music of Icelandic group Sigur Ros last week, and they have a distinct ethereal sound I’ve never heard before. I’m currently listening to their Ágætis byrjun album, which means ‘an alright start’ in Icelandic.

5 in a Row

2007-07-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

5 in a row. And what a match this was. Rafa played a better game overall and has a Wimbly in him for sure, but Fedex stepped up in the last set to take it away. With 9 consecutive Grand Slam finals and 11 Grand Slam titles overall, I see nothing stopping Fedex from being the greatest ever. But what will be more interesting is what the future holds for Nadal, who is perhaps not talked about as much, but has potential for being the one player who can dominate all surfaces. He has improvised his game on grass significantly this year, perhaps even being a better grass-courter than Fedex himself. It's very likely Nadal will win Wimbly before Fedex conquers France.

Wikipedia has a neat table showing the Fedex Slam record

Either way, its 5 in a row. And my week couldn't have possibly gotten off to a better start.

What's your most memorable sporting moment?

2007-07-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

Serena Williams led today's game against Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-5 when she fell down with painful calf muscle cramps. The medics helped her on court with painkillers and a brief massage, but she was already in tears, screaming with pain. She struggled to get back on her feet and receive Daniela's service, but couldnt move to hit the ball. Tears streaming down her face, she lost the game and was 2-4 down in the tie-break when the rain gods appeared to be listening, and the game was suspended in the downpour that followed. When the game resumed a few hours later, Serena looked close to normal after medic assistance and quickly took charge in an adrenalin pumping set to close the match out 6-2. Before walking off, Serena blew a kiss towards the skies, which gave her the much needed reprieve.

Serena's win made me recall some of the inspiring sporting moments in recent times I can recall having seen -
* Micheal Jordan's last shot in the 1998 NBA which he sank with 5 seconds to go to win the game against Utah and secured the Chicago Bulls' sixth title.
* Maradona's two goals against England in 1986
* Federer beats Sampras in the 4th Round, Wimbledon 2001 - changing of the guard
* Miandad's last ball six off Chetan Sharma (Sigh!)
* Lance Armstrong's first of six consequitive Tour de France titles in 1999.
* Kerri Strug completing a vault with ripped ankle ligaments at the 1996 Olympics

What's your most memorable sporting moment?

Hanauma Bay Snorkelling - Comic Strip

2007-07-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hanauma Bay Strip

Pictures from our snorkelling adventure in Hanauma Bay in Hawaii I threw together while experimenting with ComicLife, a neat Mac application that makes putting together little strips such a breeze. Disclaimer - Pardon my sense of humor, just enjoy the pics.

Here's an interesting fact - the bay was formed as a result of volcanic activity about 10,000 years ago. After the explosion, the crater opened up to the sea, forming the bay. Due to the rich volcanic core, corals grew over the centuries and a rare marine ecosystem flourished.

The pictures hardly do justice to the beauty and the number of stunning fishes we saw, partly since I had enough trouble swimming through the corals while holding the camera still enough. As you can tell, the better pictures were taken by Monami, who ventured into the deep end (she's a great swimmer).

Johnny Mac and Mac Mini

2007-06-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading John ("Johnny Mac") McEnroe's autobiography, very aptly titled "Serious", a reference to his well known "You cannot be serious" jibe at a chair umpire during the 1981 Wimbledon.

It's written in McEnroe style - its honest and straightforward, saying things as it is. It takes you through the childhood pressures he faced and the highs and lows of growing up, and how he thrived on his emotional outbursts to goad himself on. He is remarkably self-critical, providing several insights into his eccentricities and failings, while still being anything but modest about his well known achievements. At times, some of the incidents he describes, like how he once threw a racket into a stand and it hit a kid are gruesome, but then - you can count on Mac to not sugarcoat things.

He writes at length about his famous encounters with Borg, Connors and Lendl - the famous five-setter with Borg at Wimbledon, the infamous loss to Lendl in the French Open final after being 2 sets up, on and off court squabbles with Connors, drug-induced experiments, and his pride in playing for his country in the Davis Cup. He offers insights into the psyche of a top player with an stressful life on the road - what do you do when you get back to family, and how do you switch off and on the intensity?

The latter part of the book focuses on his divorce with Tatum, marriage later to Patty Smith, the singer, and how kids have changed his perspective on life. At the end of it all, a few words probably sum him up. Driven. Angry. Genius. Honest. Edgy. Passionate. Human.

I read the book while watching through the second week of the French Open, which ended with Nadal displaying another superlative performance to thwart Federer's bid. In my heart, I was secretly wishing that Federer would win the French, and that Nadal would win Wimbledon this year, adding another interesting twist to the tale. The game and tennis lovers have so much to gain from the ongoing rivalry.

As some of you know, I havent had a home PC for a while since I've been working primarily off my work laptop. After much deliberation - probably about a year in fact, I went out and bought one. First, I have to tell you that I'd been eyeing the Mac Mini ever since Apple came out with their Intel based series which could dual-boot to Windows. After much analysis paralysis of options between buying an assembled PC, a branded PC and several trips to the Mac store at Forum Mall, I made the leap!

And what can I say - I've just been completely blown away by the whole experience. The only other Apple product I've ever owned was an AirportExpress Wi-Fi router, which was very handy while travelling, and I've always had the image of a marketing-savvy high priced over-stylish company with high maintenance add-ons to fund their large R&D budget. I'm happy to say that I was wrong, at least on a few counts. It started with my shopping experience, where walking out of the store with the Mac Mini was like carrying out a 'tiffin box' to the setup at home which was super smooth. The Mac hardly looks like a PC. It's more like a consumer electronic device. My objective is primarily home use - hooking up cameras, miniDV and music while using it to surf and email. I've been able to organize my pictures, make movies with ease, use the remote control provided to listen to music and watch videos effortlessly. Monami found a neat software called ComicLife which she plans to use to draw, then upload and insert strips to create graphic storyboards. Little things like the Expose feature, which initially seems like just a neat trick, but upon use turns out to be an intuitive way of handling multiple windows makes you wonder why Windows doesn't work that way. Have I tried to set up Windows Bootcamp or tinker with the BSD underlying system? Not really. For now, I'm just happy immersing myself in Macworld.

New reality show on the lot

2007-06-05T01:03:00.000-07:00

Now, I really detest reality shows - I've always found them fabricated and boring. But there's a new reality show competition on Star World called 'On the Lot' produced by Stephen Spielberg and Mark Burnett, that caught my attention. Various up and coming filmmakers compete against each other in a series of weekly elimination rounds to win the grand prize - a million $ development deal at Dreamworks!!

Apparently, the official On The Lot site gathered 12,000 submissions from all over the world and the submission deadline was February 16, 2007. These 12,000 submissions yielded 50 semi-finalists. The contest structure is similar to that of American Idol, with the initial episodes narrowing those semi-finalists down to 18 finalists. After the audition stage, the program will comprise of a 1-hour show where movies are screened ("Film Premiere") followed the next day by a half-hour results show ("Box Office"). Viewers can vote each week for their favourite directors, which will result in the elimination of the directors with the lowest vote totals.

In the episode Monami and I watched over the weekend, the directors were challenged to create 1-minute comedy short films.

There were many good entries and all of them were enjoyable. A few that stood our were an Australian director's amusing sex-comedy about a woman's daydreams as she goes through the elaborate security screening drill at the airport, and an American director's little piece about a not-so-lucky penny found on the road that passes hands.

But of all the films, I loved young Canadian director Zach Lipovsky's gem titled "The Danger Zone" about "SAFECo Labs - the safest place on earth". It took him over 46 attempts to get the whole single-shot domino sequence right, and the hard work shows.

Watch "Danger Zone - Directed by Zach Lipovsky"

Here's also a link to the video off their official site where you can also check out the other contestants entries.

I personally found the judges quite tiresome, except for Garry Marshall, who had some insightful comments, for instance about how the actors could have been used better, or roles could have been switched. I'm hoping the producers rethink how they want to use the judges a little bit since the show tends to drag on a bit.

However, I definitely think this show has potential, especially due to the rich variety of film entries, and I can right away imagine a Bollywood clone in the works with Mahesh Bhatt, and one of the Chopras as judges.

Gun Bazaar of Pakistan

2007-05-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

glumbert.com - The Gun Bazaar of Pakistan

This video shows a guy named Suroosh Alvi who uses his mom's connections to pass through the Khyber Pass into the region where the Daraa tribe lives in Pakistan to see the largest illegal arms market in the world. The tribe believes in 'many sons and lots of guns'. Over a thousand guns are made by hand every day in crude machine shops, and these are then supplied to Taliban terrorists through their network of cells.

Thanks Bob for sharing this video.

A special wedding gift

2007-05-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a neat pic of Monami and I flanked by my best buddies from school at our reception (L to R - NP, Anand, and Rahul). Sumant, who made it to the wedding is not in the pic.

Their gifts to us were very thoughtful - a book on graphic art for Monami and the DVD of the classic Sampras-Federer game at Wimbledon 2001 for me. Rahul had actually read my post last year, and was sweet enough to buy it online and bring it all the way from Boston.

My in-laws visited us a few weeks back and had brought along various gifts from the wedding which we had left behind since we were travelling right after. After our in-laws left, we finally had time to sit down and watch the DVD.

It's really hard, and doesnt make sense to compare across eras, and Sampras was past his prime at the time of this game and Federer was still young - nevertheless, this is easily one of the most best displays of tennis I've seen.

In the first three sets, Federer has the clear upper hand, although he loses the second set to Sampras due to some unforced errors on his serve at a critical stage.

In the last two sets of the game, Sampras plays like the champion of old, serving and volleying beautifully, executing crisp drop volleys, and cracking passing shots on the run. But young Federer, appearing on Center Court for the first time ever keeps his cool and hits brilliant service returns (a remarkable feat when Sampras serves consistently at 136 mph), mixes up his serves well, strikes rocket speed passing shots on both his backhand and forehand, and comes up with some brilliant angles.

When Federer emerges the winner after 3 hours and 53 minutes of play and five hard fought sets (7-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7, 7-5), he is so overwhelmed by the moment that he forgets the customary bow at the end of the game!

While we received many lovely gifts, this one has been particularly special!

Delirium Café - Guinness record for most beers!!

2007-05-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the Delirium Café in Brussels holds the Guiness Book world record for the most beers? It's located in a little alleyway 5 minutes away from the Grand Place in the city center.

You pass the sign of a pink elephant (BTW, I suspect the sign refers to the euphemism for delirium, "seeing pink elephants") and follow the stairs down to the basement, where everyone is seated on tall stools around large wooden barrels. The huge menu offers a list of over 2000 beers from various countries - and yes, Kingfisher was listed.

If you'd like to try a local beer, be sure to sample the dark Delirium and the Duvel ('Devil') - but be forewarned, they live up to their names! I didnt see any pink elephants or devils, but sure needed caffeine the next morning!

All across Brussels, you find little statues of Manneken Pis, a young boy pissing. Legend has it that the child saved the Grand Place by putting out a bomb by pissing on the fuse. What really amused us though was finding a statue of his female counterpart, known as Jeanneke Pis right by the Cafe!

A Maglev train ride in Shanghai

2007-05-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

I made my second visit to China last month, spending a week in Shanghai. As some of you may know, the first operational high-speed conventional maglev railway in the world is the Shanghai Maglev Train which runs from downtown to the Pudong International Airport. And guess what, I rode it on my way back to the aiport.

Time taken for a taxi cab ride down the 30 km stretch: One hour
Time taken for the train to zips across the same stretch: 7 minutes!!!!

It hits a top speed of 431 kmph (see the snap I took below).

I took a multi-burst snap with the rapid exposure setting on (see below - top to bottom, left to right), which shows the train whizzing past a building.

Here's a short video clip I took from the window side as the train started to pick up speed - click here.

So how was the ride? Well, it was definitely very smooth and quick, thanks to the German engineering that enabled China to build this limited operational line. On the other hand, it may have been on the most boring train rides I've been on. I'd rather hang out of a slow meter gauge train anyday, watching the coaches snake their way across a bend heading in a tunnel.

How to access blogspot from China

2007-04-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in Shanghai for work related meetings and have been having trouble getting to Blogspot since the Chinese government censors access to various internet sites.

I've found a useful hack from a Chinese blogger:sweet-blogspot-fix-from-chinese-blogger. The Russian Anonymizer site seems to work, but not for all sites.

Fireflies Festival of Music 2007

2007-04-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again - the annual Fireflies 'dusk to dawn' festival of music is back, and after rumors doing the rounds, I finally heard confirmation about the fest on Friday night. Last years Fireflies festival had been absolutely fabulous (read my post dated April 2006), and this years line up of performers was just as stellar.

The all night long festival is held at the Kaggalipura village, which is about 20 km from Bangalore (see route map for details).

For the sleepover, Monami and I packed a mat, pillows, food, sheets, and an umbrella. The forecast had said there were 70% chances of rain, but fortunately, the weather held out.

The directions provided were good, and it's a straightforward drive down Kannakapura Road past various temples that had pujas (for the lunar new year and harvest festivals) and Art of Living. Somehow, we missed the Ganesha temple and the prominent sign for Fireflies and had to turn back after we had gone too far.

The first performance we saw was the Tala Vadya, from the Karnataka College of Percussion. Their ensemble included the mridangam, ghatam, dholak, drum pad, and the tabla. They were quite impressive although the richness of the tabla drowned out the other instruments.

During the break after this performance, a few announcements were made which hinted at possible future synergies between Bangalore Habba and Fireflies, as well as with the Alliance Francaise, whose director Eric is a regular here. I'm a bit divided on how I feel on further commercialization of an event like this, since it can dilute the focus and novelty, but I'll hope it'll help drive similar breakaway gatherings.

Next was an interesting performance by Clio Karabelia, a visiting half-Greek/half-French harpist with a supporting sitar and tabla. Unfortunately, she had various problems with the mikes, and the sound of the tabla/sitar all but drowned out the harp. I hope she'll be back, perhaps for a harp solo.

Dr Thomas Chandy and his group of eight senior citizen musicians - the Jazz Revival performed next, and were just as good as they were the last year. Dom Saldhana, their ageing sax player, who met Dr Chandy when he had come to Hosmat hospital to get his knee fused was their blue-eyed old boy, winning the audiences hearts.

After all that jazz came a high energy show from Dollu Kunitha, Karnataka's very own group of rising star drummers. The finished by walking up through the crowds and then continued drumming near the stalls behind for what seemed like the longest time.

Oikyotaan!!! The group that everyone had been waiting for, and it around 1AM, they took stage. And for the next two hours, the audience was treated to a splendid variety of Baul and Fakir music. Bonnie, their lead singer has tremendous stage presence and an amazing voice. With the assitance of Karthik, their Baul singer and other contemporary artists, they have a sound unlike any other group out there. Having heard them now for the second year running, I'm fairly certain we will look back someday and say, 'We were there - we heard them back then!'. The finished to a standing ovation, and the CDs they had for sale were quickly lapped up.

Like last year, they were followed by a Qawalli group, this time Shafiq Pervez and group from Nagpur. They were interactive with the audience and were splendid playing favorites like 'Dum Mast Kalander' and 'Purdah hain'.

The next performance was a sarcastic Serbian guitarist, who played a few traditional Serb songs before launching into a self-indulgent jam with the accompanying drummer. When he finally finishes, the sun is already rising and the next ensemble's nature themed jungle beats rouse the audience. If the organizers had chosen to keep this spot a bit tighter, its possible that they might have finished by day break as initially planned.

The morning raga parameshwari, the final signature piece and wake up call from sitarist Hindol Deb built up tempo gradually over time. The artist was seemingly annoyed that he was permitted to play only at around 7AM, and that there were noisy disturbances with the sound systems being removed during his poignant performance.

As we left in the morning, looking at the garbage strewn all around, we wondered if the message of social responsibility, one of the themes of the event this year was being heard. Is further commercialization of the event really the answer? I'd love to know what other people think.

Overall, Fireflies is easily the most entertaining annual event in Bangalore today. The wonderful vista of talented artists, the near magical ambience and the lively and appreciative audience make for a memorable night. And oh, at the risk of repeating myself. Oikyotaan. Oikyotaan. Oikyotaan. They have a sound like no other. Hear them live.

Namma Bengaluru!

2007-04-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

I've resisted blogging about Bangalore and stray dogs (over 10 on my street!) - there's just enough said out there and more. But when I saw not one, but a dozen grazing cows from the balcony of my apartment, this really cracked me up. :-) And in case you are wondering, I dont live in the outskirts - we are 5 km from downtown MG Road, and nearby the Diamond District building where my company's office is.

In the pictures below, you can see the cows grazing in the middle of open area (erstwhile military land, although practically abandoned today). You can see Diamond District and Natasha Golfview in the background. The strange fenced structure the cows are strutting around used to be a water tank.

An April Fools Day prank

2007-04-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

I started a silly prank on a few colleagues this Fool's Day - The pretext? That we had just closed a deal through a reseller in Pakistan and that they had to prepare to travel immediately to engage in meetings. They got quite worried, calling their spouses and parents to enquire frantically about the safety issues of visiting Karachi. One spouse insisted that her husband not travel, while one colleague's father told him that he would need to go to the project along with an ISI bodyguard. One felt that it would be best to turn down the deal rather than do business with terrorists.

We then got the group together in the board room, to explain the 'urgency' behind the trip, and to get their signatures on the visa application forms (conveniently downloaded from the Pakistani government website, with a authentic looking logo and the works) and a mocked up indemnification form signing off on all liabilities from the company. A few faces looked a bit small while the forms were being passed around.

When we broke the news, there were loud guffaws for the longest time!!!! Oh BTW, I'm now on the hit-list for the next prank, so stay tuned for updates ;-)

Note: Names changed(?) for anonymity

Team,

Great news – we’ve just closed a small but significant deal in Pakistan (new territory!) through our reseller partner (POS) there. Pakistan Telecom has signed up for 10,000 seats of SmartAccess, SubAgent and RA. POS will drive up most of the implementation since we for obvious security reasons will not be in a position to engage there longer term. However, we need to spend 3 weeks training them on the solutions, and to assist with the initial design.

You can find more information about the Pakistan Telecom at: http://www.ptcl.com.pk/

Harin and Narik, it would be good for you to start to prep for the travel to Karachi next week. I will get back to you with information on visas, etc. Vatsa/Rehan, lets sync up as well.

Thanks,

Aravind Krishnaswamy
Director, APAC Global Services
Cell: +91-9945564582
SupportSoft, Inc.

I got a call late that night around 10PM. I picked up the phone - it was one of my colleague's mother. I could hear it coming - "How could you do such a thing? My son and I got so worried!". Instead she said, "I was so amused to hear the whole thing - I am still laughing!".

Phew!

14-yr old Federer with Connors

2007-03-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is high on the Cute-o-Meter!!! 14 year old Federer, who was a ballboy at his hometown tournament in Basel, Switzerland rubs shoulders with Jimmy Connors, who was visiting to play an exhibition match.

And no, this picture isnt morphed!!! It's off Roger's official site - read the article here.

If Connors only knew Federer would break his record for number of weeks at No. 1 several years later..

My food blog - stats from Google Analytics

2007-03-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics offers interesting insights into the visitors to your blogs. For instance, I found that

Most visitors to my food blog come in through google - While this may sound obvious, I personally had thought most visitors were my friends and family
The most common search keyword was 'food review bangalore'. When I tried searching google using these keywords, I found that my blog shows up second in the listing.
50% of the visitors are repeat visitors

Here's a few things I'd love to see Google Analytics add:

ability to get email alerts based on certain criteria - for instance, over 1000 visitors in a day
ability to embed most commonly searched keywords from Analytics directly into the blog as a side pane

Good news - my patent received!

2007-02-20T23:35:00.000-08:00

Well, some good news to share: A patent applied by Iowa State in Feb 2001, based on work I had done earlier during my M.S. (in 1997/1998) was finally awarded to me and my co-inventors on Feb 6, 2007.

It's a nice personal landmark, although I as such am not supportive of the idea of software patents. In the case of our innovation, what is patented is the unique approach, and thereby it promotes further R&D investments in that area.

My main peeves against patentability in general are:

It's use by large corporations to bully smaller ones due to the risk of litigation costs. In the U.S., I'm amazed by the time and energy lost in haggling with litigation firms, who make a living out of this
It's often used to monopolize the market, at least in the near term, by establishing some proprietary standard which the general public is then trapped with. Or worse still, caught between having to choose between two standards which are not interoperable. More money, more time lost.
Poor quality reviews by patent examiners - Understandably, since they are overwhelmed by the sheer volumes, it takes them years to get through patents. Mine took seven years! Despite that, since patents are often in very specialized niche areas, the examiners are often not qualified to judge them effectively and patents get awarded for things which are just minor derivative improvements.
The open source and SME community suffers - thereby choking innovation at lower levels before they can become fruitful.
The number of patents does not correlate to value to society, which should be the longer term goal.

All in all, I'm not saying patentability is a bad thing. However, I believe that it needs to be tuned to benefit society better.

Here's the letter with the details of the patent grant.

-------------------------------------------------

February 19, 2007

Mr. Aravind Krishnaswamy

Re: U.S. Serial No. 09/781,638 - Patent No. 7,174,536
Integrated Interactive Software Visualization Environment

Dear Mr. Krishnaswamy:

We are pleased to advise that a patent has been granted on the referenced patent application. The patent, entitled Integrated Interactive Software Visualization Environment, issued on February 6, 2007, and was given U.S. Patent Number 7,174,536. The patent may be viewed by entering the patent number at the following link: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm. Please contact our office if you would like us to send you an electronic version of the patent, or if you would like assistance in viewing or downloading the patent. Thank you for all of your efforts in working with this office and our attorney to make this possible.

Sincerely,

/s/

Kenneth Kirkland, Ph.D.
Executive Director

Inventors: Kothari; Suraj C. (Ames, IA), Krishnaswamy; Aravind (Redwood City, CA), Namara; Yogy (Ames, IA), Deng; Yunbo (Ames, IA)
Assignee: Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc. (Ames, IA)
Appl. No.: 09/781,638
Filed: February 12, 2001
Current U.S. Class: 717/109 ; 717/105; 717/113; 717/123; 717/125; 717/144; 717/155; 717/156
Current International Class: G06F 9/44 (20060101); G06F 9/45 (20060101)

Jan 24th - I got married!

2007-01-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

*Note: This is a backdated entry*

The highlights from our wedding and honeymoon are now online! More pictures to come as we get around to uploading them - please check back for updates.

Click on the picture to go to the galleries below.

Highlights from:
* Mehendi
* Haldi (Turmeric) bath
* Baraath
* Muhurtam
* Reception
* Hawaii - Honeymoon!
* Vegas
* San Francisco

Dont miss the video from the saptapadi (seven steps around the fire - wedding vows)!

Gallery 1: Monami & Arvi's Wedding Photo Scans

Gallery 2: Arvi &Monami's Wedding Highlights

Gallery 3: Surprise party at company HQ

A day in Korea

2007-01-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

I made a brief trip on Jan 18th to Seoul, Korea along with our sales team in an effort to identify strategic partners for our growth in the region. This was quite a hectic trip since it was the week before the wedding, and Monami and I had so many things to wrap up. On top of that, I spent more time in the air flying to Korea than on the ground during the day long meetings. The temperature changes were pretty harsh as well - going from pleasant Bangalore winter to humid Singapore where I had layover to freezing Seoul, where the mercury hit zero. By the time I got back, Monami had already left to Nagpur and it took me a day to unwind. However, all in all, it was a productive trip and here are a few pictures with Royce and Chih-Che.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. I've posted a brief review on my food blog - make sure you check it out.

Nadal: 'In any other era, I would already be number one'

2006-12-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

'In any other era, I would already be number one'. However, says Rafael Nadal in an interview with Bikash Mohapatra, destiny deemed that he be playing in the same time period as the best player in history. Read the full article here >>

Nadal, the 2004 doubles winner at the Chennai Open is back this Jan to compete in the singles, and should be quite a crowd puller!!

Maine Kya Kiah?

2006-12-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

Melanie organized a fun carol singing event at work last week. Although I joined the first days practice, a bad throat infection kept me out through the rest of the week and although they amicably invited me to the final performance, all I could do was be the echo on 'Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer'.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Echo: Reindeer)
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows (Echo: Like a lightbulb!)"

With Nihar on the guitar, and Babu on the drums, we had a fun ensemble together. We also sang a fun variant of the 12 Indian days of Christmas.

Monami got a holidays gift set of yum Ghirardelli chocolates.

And oh, last Sunday, we went by Kiah's jewelery store outlet and picked rings for each other. I chose a band (No, not really LOTR inspired). She chose a 'knot' with 44 little diamonds.

$499.95 on Amazon - my college project report

2006-12-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

Neuro Fuzzy Methods for Adaptive Video Image Compression Using Iterated Fractal Transforms - For Sale ($499.95) (Hardcover)
by R Engels, A Sendillnathan, Aravind Krishnaswamy, B Arun Shenbaga Kumar (Author)

Chemba found a used copy of our college project report for sale on Amazon.com.

The seller is listed as 'vegasbookstore', who appears to have a good rating, so this doesnt appear to be a farce. See extract below from Amazon:

Seller: vegasbookstore

Rating:98% positive over the past 12 months (574 ratings.) 668 lifetime ratings.

Shipping: In Stock. Ships from NV, United States Expedited shipping available. International shipping available. See shipping rates.

Comments: clean text, dust jacket covered, cover pages have some creases, minor wear

The mystery - how did this bookstore get a copy of our project report? And, who did they think would ever buy it for $499.95? ;-)

And in case you were wondering what the hell the long winded title means, fractal image compression was a novel technique back in the late 80s/early 90s that competed with JPEG. (And yes, complex project titles helped garner brownie points with the profs).

Our project focused on applying the IFS techniques to video images. The compression ratios were very high (1:100 and higher), but the speed of compression and quality were poor. We experimented with parallelizing our algorithm on PARAM and the IBM SP2 32-node cluster, which yielded some performance improvements.

If you've been around in the industry long enough, you might recall JPEG gained popularity partly due a faster decompression technique, but also due to the political power of the joint photographers group.

So, would we have made it big had JPEG not won out? Probably not, but it was an interesting project. And oh, I still have my project report with me. Not for sale however, thank you.

Did I tell you that I'm getting married?

2006-12-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

I am!!! Here's our wedding invite designed by Monami and I - well, mostly by her really. It's in the format of a bookmark!

The scans for the two sides are below. One side has the usual prosaic wedding invite details, and the other has three frames that tell the story ;-)

View Medium Size
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Casino Royale

2006-12-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

When I went into the theater to watch Casino Royale this weekend, I was expecting the usual 'leave your brains in the car park' - guns, babes and gizmos oversimplistic sensational masala mix. Well, it had all of that, but all in all, was a credible and realistic movie.

In fact, it may be the best Bond movie I've seen. Daniel Craig's character reminded me a lot of Alec Leamas, the protagonist from John le Carré's novel 'The Spy who came in from the cold'. It's difficult to pinpoint what it is - His hardened looks? Moral complexities?

Or maybe simply the fact that unlike the other Bonds who would come out of a martial arts tussle dodging howitzers without any signs of a loose thread on their exquisite tailored suits, Daniel's character bleeds like the rest of us mortals.

He's real.

12 (Indian) Days of Christmas

2006-12-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

Looking for a laugh?
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owK5tHjL0aE

This is a great spoof of the traditional Christmas song, with the tongue in cheek lyrics going,
"12 cricket ball tamperers
11 syllable names
10 minute yoga
9 telemarketers
8 bollywood films
7 eleven workers
6 it grads
5 minutes of fame
4 hare krishnas
3 buttered chickens
2 nosy inlaws
a totally insufficient dowry!!!"

A(na)kin to Darth

2006-11-24T11:07:00.000-08:00

Meet Darth.

In order to enable an increasing need for my being 'always on' and connected, I recently got a new lifeline to the wired world, my umbilical cord to the 'enterprise'.

But Darth has a 'Bright Side'.

Jokes apart, 'Darth', my Blackberry 8700G has already been a life saver. My laptop crashed last Thursday and I almost suffered a nervous breakdown since I had a dozen things to finish between sales RFP responses, forecast updates, and urgent emails. I got an urgent wake up call at 5AM from our sales rep in China asking for a new proposal, and I managed to somehow edit the word doc off Darth and zip it off in time.

Pros: Always on and reliable email access - corporate and gmail/yahoo, great integration with outlook and other tools, excellent screen, handy qwerty keyboard, google chat and yahoo IM clients, slick web browser, outlook calendar view, basic MS Office apps.

Cons: It's clunky, has a standby battery life of about one day, and I got this just around when I was considering finally buying a camera phone (it doesnt have a camera and other 'fun' features). And yes, it looks much akin to Darth Vader, like my friend pointed out as soon as she saw it.

My cousin interviewed Stephen King

2006-11-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

After Christina Aguilera a few months back, my cousin recently interviewed Stephen King!!!

Yes Rahul - this is big time, and great job! :-)

http://www.todayonline.com/pdflive/1411FCL032.pdf

Now you just need to snag an interview with Federer, and get me a backstage invite too ;-)

Goofy Duo

2006-11-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

Mons and I got a digitized sketch made at Garuda Mall.

Visited countries map

2006-11-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

I've traveled to 22 countries, but I am yet to touch LatAm and Africa. Lets see - I might visit Serengeti in Tanzania sometime next year.

Here's a fun web site that lets you create a 'visited country map'.

Visited 22 countries (9%)
create your own visited country map

Sampras vs. Federer Wimbledon 2001 Highlights

2006-10-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

The year is 2001, and the quarter finals of Wimbledon has just ended. Roger Federer has dethroned the reigning champion Pete Sampras 7-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7, 7-5. Sampras had won seven out of the previous eight Wimbledons.

The morning headlines read, "Swiss teen Federer ends Sampras' Wimbledon run". Sampras was deprived of an eighth title, and his attempt at a fifth consequitive Wimbledons.

I found a beautifully compiled video of the highlights of the game on YouTube. While by no means can this game be extrapolated to compare the great players since Sampras was nearing the end of his career, and Federer was just starting off, this is a video clip to watch just for the sheet beauty of their games. Some of the points are so unbelievable, I had to rewind and watch it a few times.

Sampras vs. Federer Wimbledon 2001 Highlights

The DVD is for sale for $14.95 on Tenniswarehouse.com, and I hope to get a copy sometime (*hint, hint*)

So, who is the greatest ever?

One laptop per child - $100 each

2006-10-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Negroponte's dream of 'One Laptop per child ' is inching closer towards reality.

2B1, the children's laptop from One Laptop per Child—a potent learning tool created expressly for the world's poorest children living in its most remote environments.

Here are some extracts from an interesting article from CNN :

"Nicholas, it looks like a science project," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said to Nicholas Negroponte, as he demonstrated one of its first versions. Skeptics abounded when, in early 2005, Negroponte left MIT's Media Lab, which he founded and ran for 20 years, aiming to build a supercheap portable computer for the world's poor children. But today Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative is preparing to launch its dream machine.

Negroponte has also seduced the leaders of Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and - until the recent coup - Thailand with his vision. Each says he wants at least a million for his country's children. And serious talks are underway with Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam and others.

Now called XO, the device has evolved into something both practical and sleek. Gone is the second prototype's hand-cranked generator, meant to free students from the need for an electric plug. (One broke off in Kofi Annan's hands when he demonstrated it at a UN tech conference last year.) Instead, the XO comes with a separate fist-sized generator. You pull a cord to make juice, like starting an old lawn mower.

The XO comes with tiny stereo speakers and three USB slots. It can be used as a conventional laptop or - with the screen twisted around - as a booklike tablet. The screen itself is a feat of energy-conserving innovation. As necessary, it can be read like paper with entirely reflected light or be illuminated completely from within. The user experience is also coolly state-of-the-art. A few bars by U2 play as the machine starts up. The Wikimedia Foundation, among others, is working on content.

If current plans hold, One Laptop Per Child will start building millions of XOs next summer and will ship at least 50 million a year by the end of 2008. That is more than all the laptops sold worldwide last year. The initial price will be closer to $150 but is projected to drop to $100 by the end of 2008.

Bush, Manmohan, Aishwarya rai and Sonia are traveling in a train...

2006-10-26T23:22:00.000-07:00

(I'm posting a joke a friend forwarded me - source unknown)

Bush, Manmohan, Aishwarya rai and Sonia are traveling in a train. The train goes through a tunnel and it gets completely dark. Suddenly there is a kissing sound and then a slap! The train comes out of the tunnel. The women and Manmohan are sitting there looking perplexed. Bush is
bent over holding his face, which is red from an apparent slap. All of them remain diplomatic and nobody says anything.

Sonia is thinking:
These Americans are all crazy after Aishwarya. Bush must have tried to kiss her in the tunnel. Very proper that she slapped him.

Aishwarya is thinking:
Bush must have tried to kiss me but kissed Sonia instead and got slapped.

Bush is thinking:
Damn it. Manmohan must have tried to kiss Aishwarya. She might have thought it was me and slapped me.

Manmohan is thinking:
If this train goes through another tunnel I will make another kissing sound and then i'll again slap bush...

Gone in 60 minutes

2006-10-25T05:04:00.000-07:00

The box of assorted fireworks we bought for Diwali - Sparklers, Flower Pots, Pencils, Hydrogen Bombs, Rockets, Hitler and Peacock crackers, Goa and Sparrow bombs, Serpents, color changing butterflys and the tug of wars.

Gone in 60 minutes.

All that was left were dust, torn bits of paper, ash, a ringing sound in our ears, and broad happy smiles on our faces.

Avast! On board the Black Pearl!

2006-10-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

My company hosts an annual 'Aisle decoration' contest sometime around Diwali, and its always a very competitive and high energy event at work. This year, the theme was opened out (versus being just Diwali related), with an overall motif - 'entertainment'. Each aisle in the office is asked to form a team, and is given two hours to put up their decoration.

One the teams started a week early, investing up to Rs. 10,000/- on cardboards, paint, woodwork, etc, and launching a massive plan of attack. Somehow, as always, our team was way underwater with project work and simply didnt have time to even think about it until the day before the event.

But just when all hope seemed lost, we had a quick team meeting and came up with an interesting theme - 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. It sure seemed like a far fetched idea at first - to take our aisle, and convert it into a large pirate ship, with the mast, deck, starboard, wheel, flags, and tubes. But sure enough, the creative juices flowed, tasks were broken up cleanly, everyone did their bit, execution was crisp, and the results were outstanding.

The Black Pearl. An elegant single-deck galleon with two masts carrying white sails. Two cannons on the side. Cloaked in dark black cloth. The wheel cut out of thermocol in the middle. The noose and the plank at one end. The sandy beach with a mock treasure chest, coins and bottles of rum at the other. And merry pirates on board dancing to the Beedi song. Ok, we did play the pirates theme for a while.

Our neighbouring aisle's theme was Diwali in the past, present and the future, with a special guided tour by Vasim dressed as Hanuman (sporting a hammer for mace) in full Mumbaiyya. The play acting of Hanuman was their trump. The HR aisle had representation from various regions of India - Kerala, Karnataka, etc and was well decorated. Sadly, the team that had started a week early and worked extremely hard didnt have too much of an impact. While their 'M.G. Road' theme was good, and the decorations were excellent, it lacked the important 'wow factor'. The previous year's winner, the TID/QA aisle had a Diwali through the ages theme which was a bit dull compared to their showing the previous year. However, their creative idea of making a 'Ravana' out of the aisle members heads was easily one of the best of everything on display.

The judges declared the Hanuman aisle the winner. Our aisle came second, and the pirates were absolutely elated. In all honesty, it was just so much fun being a part of it all, who won was almost insignificant.

My Birthday

2006-10-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I had a lovely birthday, spending my day trying to do as many of my favorite things as I could. I had a list of ten, and made it through almost all. Breakfast at India Coffee House. A game of tennis (with Hashimi). Coffee at Kalmane. Scrabble. Shopped for running shoes. Crab at Kudla.

Thank you so much everyone for your wishes - I had a deluge of greetings over email, on the phone and on orkut. And thanks for the many lovely gifts.

One present that stood out was a creative and thoughtful one from some of my team mates. Most of you are well tuned in to my obsession for Federer. Well, they morphed my face on top of his rival Nadal's and here you have it - the clash of the titans ;-) (The picture of mine they chose is from a face painting contest at work - the blue butterfly was painted by one of my colleagues)

Isnt it lovely? Well who knows, I might still meet Federer someday. Perhaps as a spectator at Wimbledon. ;-)

A-ha - 'Take on me'

2006-08-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is this one of the finer music videos ever made? Did any one else like this one? This was one of the earliest ones I remember seeing as a kid and I just loved how the medium is used. Pretty cool 80s video, although it does seem a bit cliched watching it now.

"Take on me" by A-Ha

Hampi Dumpty - my fall

2006-08-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

That's a small gash I had from my bike fall. Not seen in the picture - I had bruises on my arm, knee and shoulder, which took a couple of weeks to heal. My most livid memory was the emergency trip we had to make to the only doctor in Hampi - the temple doctor. She didn't have real bandages - they had to tie pieces together, and the only medicine available was a strange raw tincture. My gash on my left arm wasn't deep, but had sheared away quite a bit of skin. When her swab of tincture hit my arm, I was shrieking madly in agony.
Lesson learnt the hard way: Traveling? Carry some Savlon wherever you go.

Monami and I by the Virupaksha Temple, adjacent to the Hampi Bazaar.

Make sure you visit Mango Tree if you visit Hampi.

Mr. Batman arrived unsolicited, flying blind, nose diving and passing out on the ground right by where we were sitting. Yes, we freaked out.

On the second day we were there, the dam gates had been opened, and the water level of the Tunghabadra river had risen over 30 feet, leaving the little teashop by the Ram temple underwater. We were there just the day before, enjoying a cuppa and the view.

The rise of the river water pushed the zillions of the bugs by the bank into the Mango Tree restaurant waterfront area, scaring away several tourists, but offering some fine pictures.

Well, there's a lot more to write home about my Hampi trip, but I'll save that for a separate post later.

I got a tattoo too

2006-08-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

On the last day of our trip to Brussels, I and my colleagues visiting from the States made a trip down to the nearby town of Ghent where a large festival called Gentse Feesten was organized for their national day. There were several live music concerts happening at the same time - reggae, latin, rock and beer festivals along the way. Ghent is a pretty city with a medieval past, and retains the old world charm with little canals, old forts, and churches with spires. In particular, the tall belfry and the Gravensteen castle were noteworthy.

After a few hours of walking around, we chanced upon a henna (mehendi) tattoo parlor off the sidewalk. Quite promptly, we all decided to get tattoos. Jeff & Jeff got some lovely macho tattoos of a lizard and a bull, while Susan got a pretty little ornamental one on her back.

I was a wimp and simply got one on my palm, and so I was the Indian beggar walking around on the street with an open palm until the mehendi dried an hour later. I scribbled a little design of my own which the artist rendered beautifully. On top are two of my passions - tennis (racquet) and writing (yes, its just a pen), with a two button mouse connecting me to work (my company logo).

It lasted a week before fading slowly away.

My Brussels trip

2006-08-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

Travelling again, but this time on work, I was in Brussels during the last week of July. Although I’ve been to Europe a few times before, I had never gotten around to visiting the picturesque Belgian capital and it was nice to get around and see things. We stayed at a Marriott in the heart of the city. Now, how American does that get? Almost like a cliche, there was a McDonalds right next door. On the other hand, the hotel was a stones throw from the central Grand Place, the cultural hub of the city with a lot of cafes, pubs and chocolate shops all around.

Here's a picture of the Grand Place at night, when they have a sound and light show. Crowds gather in summer and laze around in the middle of the beautiful plaza, watching the splendid display.

Like in many other European cities, there's a statue which people rub and make a wish as they pass by for good luck. That's Jeff Jarvis, Jeff Wilhelm, Craig and I rubbing the reclining bronze figure. Oh, all of us except JeffJ.

Every street in the city center seems to have a cafe, a pub and a chocolate shop. Why chocolate shops? Belgium is home to some of the best chocolate manufactures in the world. I came back to work with over a kilogram of Leonidas chocolates all of which disappeared in minutes! I also brought back some Neuhaus and Côte d'Or. Here's a picture of a little chocolate shop which had 'tennis chocolates'! Yes, I bought some of those too. :)

My cab ride from the airport to the hotel was quite interesting. My cabbie was Schumacher, or at least he sure drove like him, weaving like a maniac through the dense traffic at 160kmph. Since I enjoy thrills, I cant complain since it was a fun joyride and felt like being with a Delhi taxiwalla. While I was all belted up in the back, Schumi was quite comfortable, one hand on the wheel and a cigarette in the other, snaking his way through while his seatbelt dangled on the side. Locals later told me that cab drivers arent required to wear belts since its the middle of the summer and it can get uncomfortable since they are driving in the heat all day long. Now, driving all day long would seem to be a good reason to belt up since it increases the chance of an accident. But then, I'm sure they know better.