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Friday, January 28, 2011

Instantaneous Strongly Opposite Emotions :)

This is graphic.Please exercise your discretion

It was a Sunday mid morning time, a time when you are on the bed, awake...................... but savoring the calm, or rather the absence of rush.

However at the same time it is nostalgic too.

This is the the time each bachelor away from home, living in a hostel craves for family, the most. When for the first caffeine fix, you need to walk to some hole in the wall, when you stare with disdain at the bulging bag of dirty clothes, and by contrast the clean cloths rack, and when the only thing stopping you from a shower is the lack of clean underwears

But, for some curious reason I like washing, ironing clothes.

The reason for this like is actually a story, (not like the Dame Washlot of "The Enchanted Tree" of Enid Blyton fame)

Now the flesh behind this story is missing, so I am going to add some of my own, but the skeleton frame is real and true.

People can be broadly classified as random or structured.

Randomness is non conformance

And most of the non conformers, would be concerned with pursuits such as painting, singing, drawing or performing arts. Such kinds................. on a pessimistic shrink analysis............ seem to suffer from a very low degree of self esteem or................... a low degree of external control, (Mom hugged little as a child, or Daddy was never around!).

Hence the latent requirement for approval .....................manifests in the form of performances. (This definition has some exceptions too…biggest being me!)

Random people will never like structured, predictable or in other words mundane activities, cleaning ironing etc etc.

Why? The presence of a structure somehow contradicts with their creative bent of mind. They kind of seem to extend the analogy of boundary conditions to their thoughts and they seem themselves kind of constrained.

Structured people are conformal to the norm.

These are generally intellectually driven towards the noble pursuits of sciences(not technology rather sciences). You see them as scientists, doctors, trying to figure out some sense in cosmic dust, smashing high energy particles in LHC (Large Haderon Collider – CERN).

Now such people are again of two types – one who are meticulous other are  random, cluttered. 

However, all such people like structure. This is because their work is so unstructured so prone to clearing a path that their mind welcomes some place where it is all defined, refreshingly simple and mind numbingly mundane.

In fact one noble prize winner said he liked knitting. Some like to garden, yet others like to clean their vehicle, walk their dog etc etc.

Now when I read about this someplace, my mind tried to rationalize the thought. I am nowhere close to winning a noble prize, but there is nothing stopping me from trying to emulate great minds is what I thought.

Knitting, somehow I thought of pink. A gay alert siren went off in my mind. Yuck no ways.

Gardening requires a garden and garden needs a place called home, not a hostel.

Laundry, yeah laundry that is good, I can do it and at least give myself the false illusion of being in the league of brain energy.

With sun warming my bare back, and the steady drip of water, I began “brush”, “soak” “lather”, “rinse”, and “soak”, on and on.

"Why the hell are you washing clothes, throw a 100 and be done with it", said D as he walked up with a fag on his lips.

I like distributing gyaan, and I kind of liked D with his simplicity and lack of any kind of hypocrisy.

With a smile I tried to explain the above analysis. I added to it the need for structure and, particularly my fanatical desire for the lack of my dependence on anything or anyone.

"So you mean to say, that a mundane, repetitive activity, like this kind of legitimizes or paves way for a nobler out put", D asked.

" Yep D that is it " !  , I reply.

D was thoughtful form some time.

" It can be any activity but subject to the above filters you just described?" , he asked.

" I think so " , I reply.

" Excellent Rajan, so that means the activity has to be simple …it is harmonic and it has to have motion " , D finishes with a flourish

I did not like his tone, and his explanation of simple harmonic motion. Early warning beeps ,  in my head began ..................that this message was not conveyed to him.

" Aha I do it daily then no wonder I am good at my work.",  he said.( he is in Predictive Analytics! btw)

Damm the D!!! Here I am trying to explain something, and that horny ass thinks of is gratification.

I was irritated but feeling smiley at the same time.

You do whatever; guys like D would never hesitate to call a spade a spade, always link off any conversation to the carnal needs.

However, their manner of relation to carnal desires every time would be so simple and unique and so darn logical, that it somehow will not incite a feeling of revulsion in you. It is like the difference between a porn movie and an erotic one.
 
One bores whereas the other excites , but both show the same flesh.( I will not specify which is what !! )

Monday, January 24, 2011

चुप तुम रहो ...चुप हम रहें :)

This one is an old Hindi movie song, I guess this was sometime when they still had lyrics apart from Sheila and Munni.

I got some forwarded link from Youtube, some wise guy has put the track with Jodha Akbar movie clip.
Anyways this song is too soulful to be left unattended.

You are quite; I will be quiet too….
The silence between us …let it converse
The lives we have let they………do the talking
Let us just sit back and enjoy the silence

Your eyes are lost into mine….
My fingers are entwined into yours
Your breath .......meets mine…
Let’s get lost in each others arms…
Let our fingers talk…
Let our eyes converse………
Let them talk…let’s just sit back....... and enjoy the silence

You are quite; I will be quiet too….
The silence between us …let it converse
The lives we have let they………do the talking
Let us just sit back and enjoy the silence

 
Let your lips write on mine....... the song........ which has no words
This divine song of our bodies’ will resound from the earth to heaven
Let sensuality prevail….
Let romanticism take over….
Let them talk…let’s just sit back and enjoy the silence

You are quite; I will be quiet too….
The silence between us …let it converse


You are ……………quite; I will be ……………quiet too….
The silence …………..between us …let it converse

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ignoramus...It is Randomness .....of Course !!

This is a sort of read back of fooled by randomness by Taleb. I had a read through, sometime back and now am reading through it again, only this time it seems to make a different set of sense altogether.

Let me take for example, one statement of his.
 
“Outcome cannot be judged, merely by the efficacy of the output, in fact it needs to be judged by the cost of the alternates”.


Now the obvious reference to this statement given by him was that of trading. However my mind, went to look for alternates (Aha, I am judging the efficacy of his example by looking at alternate examples!!).

I am rich, is the output, ok so the next obvious question is that how rich you are. Never is the question judging the cost of alternate of rich that is poor, how less poor you are.

Another example I could think off, is of course related to my little head and of late all the arguments I counter to Amma.I am married is the outcome, good the judgment of the outcome is who are you married to, what does she do, where do you put up, blah blah.

Never is the outcome judged to the cost of alternates, that is now all your weekends are not your own, you have an additional responsibility, you are tied to one post for ad infinitum, you can’t blow a bundle in one night on a hooker (oops!!).

Anyways now back to randomness.

Similar is the case with the reference of buying a call or a put option. Similarly when you made money, using a particular trade, they are assumed causal, the alternate of the trade is not know that is how much money you would have lost if you had not executed the trade.(gain is not equal to loss here, so says Sirjee)

There was an excellent example, in it. One person, asked a trader to create an alternate trading strategy, if the building which housed them was gutted down by fire in an hour.

Now admittedly the possibility of these events is minuscule, but what these events lack in frequency they make up in magnitude and impact, (the same volume margin funda!!) Building on this he says it is a wiser path to lose small a mounts of money, and by the same logic make an obscene amount just once. (Incidentally he seems to be one of the guys who mad money in the sub-prime).

The flaw in current methods is that we just put the occurrence of random events in one bracket of error, noise or probability.

I am not a mathematician nor a finance guy, but with what little finance I have read the current methods ( say Black-Scholes) does not assign a correct impact value to it. That is you just take each action, drill down a binary outcome, assign a value to each outcome, and to the final value of outcome add some error percentage to get an estimated value, which by the above analysis seems to be wrong.


50K with VAT !

This is true and it happened yesterday!!

As a part of my work I am also in charge of creating brand value. That is fancy poster and visuals for displaying our products, capabilities and in short anything eye catching, to be given in places where it is not economical to go on a regular basis.

Business here is on relationships, however something pretty always helps, (it is human nature to be appreciative of form and structure!)

I got a dikat from the top management on creating on AV to be streamed continuously in our entry reception. Some contact was got out from the annals of web media and the MD of that firm landed for a discussion on how we could do it.

Ahhhh....the meeting reminded me of JWT.

The MD of the firm was a creative guy who somehow had landed on to the servicing side of the business. He tried to explain, certain things to me such as the importance of

1. Your branding strategy?
2. Competitive benchmarking
3. Points of differentiation?
4. Positioning statement
5. Branding construct.

My my...this is asking for fart from a guy who has no trouble in pulling out jargon's from anywhere.

 I picked up the marker and explained branding, among the following other things to him

1. How to execute branding?
2. On a rational construct?
3. To create an aspirational value in an industrial setting?
4. Without using the parameters of legacy and trust.

The MD was impressed and confused in equal measure. He had not done his homework and I always do it. I did not have time to spend on the nuance of a 180s AV, when I had to answer questions on booking expected in Q1, which I really did not know much about.

I gave him a flow chart, firmly explained what I want and also gave him an idea of visuals I had made using PowerPoint and told him to improvise on that, without changing the essence of information.

This alone took an hour, and I ran it through my boss and his boss quickly, they were okay with it. I told them the cost, and they said" Get T from sourcing to fix it".

Fine, I don’t want to dirty my hands there. I caught hold of T; he was a plain speaking veteran of a decade of expertise in sourcing high value items.

I explained the same to him and told him that the stream trickled from the top, so he had to fix it.

He asked the price and I said " 80k for a 180 seconds video"

T just said, " शादी ब्याह मैं तो मुहरत से लेकर बिदाई तक पन्द्र हज़ार मैं  निपट लेता है , यह ३ मिनट के अस्सी हज़ार कैसे हुए ?".

I chuckled inwardly at the plight of the MD of the advertisement firm when he tried to explain to T all the fast ones he tried to pull on me.

I had also to fix up stuff for the audit, so I asked him to take the discussion with them in conference hall, and said I would join soon. Meanwhile I asked another sales head to be present in there, because T sometimes gets very blunt.

This was after 7.30 PM.

I was done by 8 PM and peeked through the con hall glass partition. I could hear clearly through the partition, as the decibel levels sounded magnified in the night time empty office setting.

“Sir, I have a flight to catch tomorrow early morning, if you don’t have the budget this time no problem sir we can do it sometime later”, said the MD

T, ”Budget is always there and never there too, you tell me how is it 80000 for 180 seconds?”

The MD of the ad firm was distraught, almost ready to bite in frustration.

T ploughed on,” Are you married?”

MD suddenly looked puzzled; however, seemed to welcome any change from the 180 seconds and 80K conversation.

“Yes sir, it has been 10 years”, he replied glumly.

“Long time, I am sure you still have the photographs of your wedding?

A wary nod.

“And of course if they are not there, you can always look at the videos , right,”, said T. Then going for the kill he said , “How much did you pay for them?”

 “Sir, please understand we are creating a work of art over here something that can lead you company to the next league”. A slight pause and then,” I understand, that you had a budget of 50k”.

My mistake, alas, I had put in a number during my discussion.

No problems there it seems.

T said, “Yeah that was the idea”.

MD, “Okay sir, we can reduce the timing and still manage the high points”.

“It was 50k with VAT”, said T firmly.

I suddenly suspected had there been a window open in the conference hall the MD would have jumped out.

Anyway I pulled myself away, because it was getting late. But I wanted to know the moral of the story, I thought I would give T a call, later but then I wanted to hear from him live.

So I waited.

9.30 PM, T came out, waved them bye and came to his seat.

I asked, “Sir, how much you agreed upon”.

T replied, “50 K with VAT”.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Give me Wings!!

I am Blueline Delhi kind of guy, and NDLS, sleeper class most of my life.

When I first got way from home, for my job, it was at Reliance Jamnagar.My first pay, most of you would guess, that I would have bought some clothes, shoes and the typical wish list items.

Well, true partly.

I did buy clothes , but I bought a collection of designer underwear's and vests , much to the chagrin of my Dad and Mom.

 " Does somebody buy an underwear for the amount you get a pant," ? , my dad queried , as he saw me modeling around in an Armani ( yes Armani, I bought one from the boutiques in Gurgaon some 4 years back ...............that was the only place near Noida which had them !! )

My retort ," It is the stuff that sticks to you the whole day, and just let me see if it is really something different"

That took care of around 30% of the net value.The remaining 70% I blew it away on Captain Gopinath.Here is an account of my first journey from "office" to "home" by a flight !!

It was my first experience, away from home and in a new state, in a refinery city. It is a city by itself, we have everything and living there invokes a feeling of structure and discipline in life. But over a period of that time it becomes monotonous, very monotonous. The works, living, all become very predictable. But I loved my time out there.

I loved the place, for its serenity. The firm I had joined had a reputation of style and working there commanded a kind of respect from locals. This was much evident, when we received the red carpet treatment, whenever we walked the local market, not to mention the hyped up prices on non essentials such as clothes etc.

It had a very famous place, for ice creams Ram Diary , and I had never tasted flavors which they had there. Sundays, the entire city and outskirts of it (that is Relaince & Essar !!  ) seemed to be strolling outside.

We had just one Cineplex -Mehul.

It was the time when Malikka Sherawat, and the film Guru was much in vogue, the former I guess still charms a lot of people. The level of her attraction among the masses was seen, when I was in the theatre. My boss, was there with his family, and incidentally had seats in the same row as mine. It was dark and the guy was late, he stumbled across and seated his clan, and just sat down adjacent to me.” Arre bahiya who Sherawat wala dance chala gaya?”, asked my boss in anxious tones.
 

The kid I was, I couldn’t resist.
 

Leaning close to him, I replied” No sir, its still to come”. Surprisingly, the look on the strict bosses face was not of shock, when he saw me, but of a full and well intentioned smile.

So I guess it was Malikka Sherawat who helped me get on well with my boss. I spent part of my salary on phone recharges and the remaining on air tickets .Captain Gopinath had made it possible for people like me to fly, so every three or four months a carefully planned 3 days holiday, clubbed with some local festival could give a nice break.

I cannot forget my first flight to home. We had to take a bus to city centre, which was an overnight journey, and from there we had to take a flight. First time around I had limited baggage and it was already the last week of the month, so only pennies remained. Getting down at city centre, I found my way to another bus which could drop to the airport.

“Get down here, no bus will take you direct to airport, you would have to walk”, the conductor told.


I got down, and started walking but soon spotted a bullock cart with some machinery ambling past. I asked the “You going to airport?”

“Yea main gate construction is going on”, came the retort.

I flashed a smile and asked “lift”?

“If you can fit in the machines, “, then sure.

It was not a great choice, but I did not want to walk. The machines were packed, and had some nice designs on inside as well as outside. I leaned back and got some of the greasy designs on myself too. The bullock cart driver was hurtling on full speed, and the bulls, responded to his commands, rather obligingly. 


A bumpy 15 minute ride and the cart stops at the departure gates.


I got down, looking much like the second cousin of the driver. The entry guard frowned at me, as I started to move to the gate. I managed to get out the ticket with a little bit of grease as garnishing for it, and held it out.

Hey I got a ticket pal, I am here to fly, and I retuned his suspicious looks with an inward comment. He examined the ticket and then asked for an identity card. Out popped my employee card, and he loses all suspicions of me being able to afford a flight.

The airport had a bunch of immaculate counters serving food, and surprisingly it wasn’t overpriced. I am always hungry, courtesy a high metabolism rate, and I never begrudge myself any expenditure on food. I must have been a sight, a greasy long haired disheveled guy, eating sandwiches and chocolates, in the departure lounge.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Startup Dreams_Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?!


I really am excited, I rush up to my room and bang into Sirjee’s room and found him all alone. I thrust the paper in front of his face and gleefully “Find anyone familiar?” Sirjee looks into it and say “This is good put it on the notice board.” At that moment I realize the extent of his selflessness. Not on word about when did this happen why did you not tell me. He had every right to know as he had worked on it putting in nearly as much effort as me. But, I wasn’t very sure about the outcome so I had not updated him. And to a small extent he wasn’t all that gung –ho about the entire project.

The next person I told in person was “S”. I wasn’t sure about his reaction, but one look at the paper and he was all wow and congrats. Now I am not an expert, but his wishes sounded genuine, so I told him there might be future PR events too and if he would like to join it would be possible. Respectfully “S” said,” Srikant keep me out of it, I have done nothing to deserve any kind of mention. You asked for help and I did just that.” Now that felt good, when someone helps you without any predetermined intent, it normally means they respect you, believe in you or both.

Anyway I send out the web link to the class representative and that guy is surprised as well,” You never told “, he said in a kind of accusatory tone. Now even I did not know that this was to happen and I am not in the habit of talking about things before they happen. I just shrugged and let that comment pass. However, he dropped a mail to the entire batch and predictably it created a flurry. There were some congrats, some back thumps but everybody was far more interested to know if I had made some money out of it, which I did not. However this answer was not palatable and not many actually believed it. Certain people often believe what they want to and no amount of alternate convincing would make them change their minds. On the contrary, sometimes it would just strengthen their perceptions of the same. So I again smiled and shrugged away their disbeliefs.

This episode of press PR also galvanized me into doing something for areapal. There other such events and some local channels and dailies also covered us. The hit count of the site went up and the idea which me and “S” worked out was well received and possibly one of the good ways to monetize the site. Kavi however decided to defer the design part of it. He was more interested in increasing the registration, and I suspected Rams mandate behind it. I however was more worried about activities post registration. If people don’t find anything worthwhile inside they are just bound to remain a statistic on the database and not an active user.

In the midst of all this I got a call form Joji. Just to refresh this was the guy who I met at the IE interview and who was also working on areapal. I was rather surprised to hear from him, as we did not usually interact. Joji did not bother with any preliminaries and immediately went to the point. Seems he had run the plan I recommended to a couple of his friends and had a few suggestions. That seemed ok, but is till could not understand his intentions in calling me. I was to fathom it later when he digressed into a tirade against Kavi; his style of working lack of planning and all.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings ..
  3. Chapter 3 - Began with a Bang 
  4. Chapter  4 - It is all in Packaging :) 
  5. Chapter 5 - Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?

Startup Dreams_It is all in Packaging :)


Finally one bright and sunny day, when I was in class I thought of asking for help from “S”. This was another guy on the lines of Sirjee but not as brilliant and slightly childish as well. But then that was expected given that he was a fresher and just 20 years of age. But he was a natural diplomat and had a way of handling different temperaments and cooling things down in any argument, the hallmarks of a good leader. I pinged him and did some shadow boxing on “what’s up” and “are you busy” and all, before throwing in the dart. “S” readily agreed and we met up later and almost by a stroke of sheer luck came up with a good plan, a very good plan. 

That’s why it is preferable to work in teams, one simply can’t think beyond a certain point and a fresh viewpoint helps.

Again, as luck would have it Kavi buzzed me just after that for an interview with the Indian Express (IE) about the local startup. This sounded good and I immediately accepted. The interview was scheduled to be held the coming day and quite nearby as well, in a place called Alliance French. I met some new faces that were also associated with the project some college dropout by the name of Joji and another guy-Arun pursuing his MBA from Chennai. Their work was not very clear but that was fine as even my responsibility was not very defined to me.

The lady form the IE was an Uma Kannan, and started of with some basic questions. Kavi countered and I immediately jumped in with some jazzy business jargons and some rather esoteric examples to prove his point. Trouble with that was although the lady was duly impressed she wasn’t very clear about the basic concept. It was at that point I realized that keeping things simple is very difficult. It is possible to spit out jargons non-stop and also possibly give a rational argument for each but that sometimes is not very effective.
Anyways, the interview went passably well and we also posed for about a dozen or so snaps. I winded it off with thanks to the lady and the cameraman. Such small gestures work wonders, possibly because everybody is selfish and wants to feel good about them.

A couple of days later, Kavi pings me saying to check the local newspaper. Needless to say I am excited, it isn’t everyday that a name appears in print. I went to the library to check the newsprint; however the paper was out, some lecturer had borrowed it. I thought I could come back after lunch and with that thought gulped down whatever was made without tasting it as much. 

I rush to the library again but the paper is still not available.

Impatient and curious I decided to buy one,

I started to walk out and Raghu my roommate is also out, on a bike possibly looking for a fag. I flag him and ask him to drop me to the nearest newsstand. I open the paper almost expecting to see my face in the first page, but as I turn it I see it in full form on the lower corner of the second page with a rather flattering snap of me. I show it in one of the rare moments of self appreciation to Raghu and he is surprised as well,” When did that happen?” I smile and reply,” A couple of days back” and thump his back.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings ..
  3. Chapter 3 - Began with a Bang 
  4. Chapter  4 - It is all in Packaging :) 
  5. Chapter 5 - Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?

Control The A ,C ,V J , P and of course the F !!

The above seemingly random letters of the queens’ language are the modern life blood of any organization and its employees.

Now you may be wondering as to what these actually do. They make life simple, and not to mention faster. If you still haven't figured out, just consider doing the following.

Open any web page and a blank document. Hit ctrl A on the web page text and then the remaining sequence of letters in the blank document.

Voila!!

Banking, IT, marketing ( Many times , I need fancy diagrams!), and of course research and consulting.

With information available aplenty, I believe we have become lazy. If you don’t know something Google it up, that is the instant thought. Rarely do we spend time to think, as to what the answer or the solution might be. Sirjee in fact told me this, that once your hear another thought or view your brain instantly tries to linear-ise and rationalize the thought, hence you dull your penchant for thinking

On a pessimistic note, now it seems to state that collective ignorance is better than individual wisdom.
 

We have conditioned ourselves to the use of these shortcuts so much that i wondered what happens if one day they disappear

Snap !!!!!!!!!! Just like that they vanish.

  1. For a change you might actually refer to a book to seek information, rather than do the Ctrl+F on an electronic version. You might even spend time flipping over the preface, reading about the author and getting connected to his thoughts as a person, putting a face over text than just a URL.
  2. Manually type out entries in an Excel sheet, and maybe linger over a bit on the values and try to relate to the feel of the numbers than just the final mean, median, mode and Stdev.
  3. Visualize a picture in your thoughts than hitting “ 3D Layout design”
  4. Go out and talk to other people seek other people’s advice in person, than just Wikipedia

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Startup Dreams_Began With a Bang


I took up the marker and started putting down our recommendations; Ram looked up curiously and countered my arguments. This went on back and forth and at timely intervals Sirjee jumped in for rescue. It was an intense affair, midway Ram stopped and asked rather irritated to Kaviraj, “What are these guys supposed to have worked on?”Kaviraj replied meekly” A revenue model to possibly monetize the site.” At this piece of information Sirjee looked up at me in surprise, but quickly regained his composure. I don’t think how Kavi thought we could have come up with a revenue model for that site in a week what I had done was to structure the damm thing and present it to the guy. Anyway almost an hours and a half later the discussion ended with the feeling around the table that everyone has had his say

However Kavi was ecstatic, post the meeting. I am guessing that nobody previously had actually taken trouble to work from a neutral perspective. We bid adieu to Kavi and Ram and promised to meet up later with whatever we could come up. Kavi walked as out of the office with all thanks and said that once some money came in based on our ideas we could split it up some way. Sirjee smilingly said that that could be done later on, and was not a major issue.

As Sirjee and we walked out I asked him about his impressions.” I can smell true business blood here in Ram. I doubt if Kavi actually gets his say in during any negotiation “.I nodded my head but I was more interested in knowing if it was worthwhile working any more on the project. Trouble with me was I constantly needed to do something, preferable new and I did not mind getting my hands dirty. However like any normal person I loved benefits that came with having a free flow of cash. Particularly, since I hadn’t got a lot of it despite working for nearly two years.

I asked Sirjee again if he thought it would be worthwhile to work on it and he did not reply immediately. I too lapsed into silence and we walked sometime towards out hostel searching for an auto. Once in an auto Sirjee replied” This is not a breakthrough idea, we do not have any USP as such but if we can package it nicely I think it may be accepted”. I nodded digesting what he said. As we walked to our rooms I said “Lets us try this for some time in between our normal sessions, I think we may come up with something”, to which that guy readily agreed.

Time passed after that about a month and a half but nothing really shaped up. We did try a couple of things but nothing actually materialized on paper. I kept interacting with Kavi online and he too sensed that we weren’t really able to do something worthwhile. Meanwhile with our semester exams nearing it was easy to push the thought away from our daily time.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings ..
  3. Chapter 3 - Began with a Bang 
  4. Chapter  4 - It is all in Packaging :)

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Startup Dreams_All Angles Dont Have Wings !

Finally I though about asking Sirjee, an absolutely brilliant, soft spoken guy, generous with help and absolutely no malice. I mailed of the document to him too and later during dinner reminded him to check his mail. As is with brilliance, he did not care a lot about what is going on. He was happy with his books and his movies for most of the time.

Anyways that guy said that he would have a look and after an hour post dinner he walked into my room with his laptop and some scribbles on it. With characteristic precession born of an incredible mind he ticked off some major points and flaws in my argument. The discussion went on till late in night and when we finally wound up we were both more confused than we were when we started. Rubbing our sleep laden eyes we decided to split and meet up later.

This cycle of discussion and post discussion continued for about a week before we could finally draft out a plan with the basic businesses objectives and recommended actions. I mailed it to Kaviraj and also requested a meet with the investor to discuss the same.

Things moved pretty fast after that and the next day itself we were invited to present our ideas to the investor who was a guy named Ram. Me and Sirjee packed up our laptops and went to his ad hoc office at Usman road which was pretty near to our hostel.

Kaviraj walks in and leads us to the guy’s cabin. My idea of an angel investor was a flashy office with MF Husain’s and Manjit Bawas on the wall. However I was in for a surprise, there were no flashy settings or glitzy corporate halls, rather a paunchy man behind a time worn desk.

However the AC was working splendidly and I gave an involuntary shiver as the chilly air hit me.

Kaviraj introduces us and Ram greets us with an accent that was more American than Indian, with confidence that comes from the understanding of ones capability. However his confidence kind of bordered on the edge of condescension albeit laced with curiosity.

“Kavi tells me that you guys can take off my pants,” he enunciates in a challenging tone. I counter with a smile,” Well, I think he might have been exaggerating,” and that kind of settled that I am not going to take things lying down.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings ..
  3. Chapter - Began with a Bang

Startup Dreams_It Aint so Easy !

I had bought about my pad and I started penning down, whatever the guy was saying. This was another MBA habit.

Committing everything to memory is sure possible for me, but I learnt that the exact thought process during the conversation cannot be replicated.

I asked him very basic questions and his answers revealed that he had indeed put in some thought before quitting his rather lucrative job and jumping headlong.

Secondly the guy was unpretentious, he had absolutely no qualms in saying that he was at his wits end and had run out of ideas, and I appreciated that.

Later on we went to a stroll in the nearby beach side and I opened my mouth for the first time.

Problem with that guy was that he had a zillion thoughts all floating around.

What I did was to give him a thread so that he could link them all and maybe once they are all linked, fashion a structure out of it.

I also told him upfront that I am not going to do all this for charity; I anticipated some monetary gains as well to which he readily agreed.

I though of putting together a legal agreement but I did not know anything about his source of finances save a passing remark from him about an angel investor.

Back at the hostel I jotted down everything I could remember. Late night he mailed me his business plan and as I read through it I suppressed a smile. It was slightly juvenile and quite optimistic as well.
 
I spent the night fashioning out a preliminary business plan based on my understanding. When I finished, even I was a confused about a lot of things I had written and I too needed some help. I thought long and hard on whom I could approach for help.
 
There were a couple but I had already asked for their assistance a number of times and I did not want to overdo it.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings !

Startup Dreams :)

This is my experience in trying ot make a new business work.

Penned during my time at B-School.

Got a mail among the several early mornings, as is my policy I read ever darn mail right down from forwards, to the god awful chain mails; each one of them. You never know what you can find and how it may be useful.

Anyways, this one was a forward from the coordinator about some guy working for a startup. Something clicked when I read it, maybe because I had some previous experience working on a website sometime back.

Anyways I did not have a frightful lot to do and the prospect of roaming around under the pretext of doing some work was sounding good. I dashed of a mail to him saying that I would like to help and also put in a mention about my previous professional blogging experience.

The rest of the day passed away quite ordinarily. Later in the evening when I logged in again I saw that guy had replied back and that was rather strange. Either he was absolutely jobless or a thorough professional in need of genuine help. There was only one way to find out, to meet him. I took some time and referred to some literature (newly found, thanks MBA!) and sent it off to him also indicating that I would prefer to meet him.

Within the next day we fixed an appointment and met up in the City Centre mall, one of the malls in Chennai.

My first impression of the guy was that he was a hard worker and passionate about what he did.

Passion, however always bordered on craziness and I wanted to find out whether he had actually given some thought before leaving everything for his dream.

Click Here

Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Closing Remarks_Epilogue

Well  it seems Noorie did not quite end it.

I took Krishna's advice and penned all this down and posted it also.However , after this he urged me to pen a  closing remarks kind , something like an epilogue.... , so here goes.

" Time is of essence in a relationship. It is like nice wine it takes time.People open up like layers, you peel off one, something else comes up.And in  the end only you really notice ,  that what you noticed initially was not really worth noticing !!


Love is learnt, it is just lust that is instantaneous or " at first sight "  emotion.

" Please hate me ", was one of her pet dialogues, how utterly juvenile as though emotions are like switches which can turn on and off just like that.But I used to enjoy hearing that from her.


Surprisingly I can’t hate her, even now.

I still dream about her, I still see the smile............ the crinkle on her nose.................
but now, I see the hollowness of it too.

It is just the structure, a little bit of heat it melts away like wax. When push turns to shove she cracks, like the pot of clay left in the sun for too long.Like an ostrich with the head in the ground as a fantasy of not seeing the imminent attack might somehow prevent it.

It takes courage and a pure hurt to share stuff that is kind of pivotal to your existence, or in other words personal stuff.

However it cannot be termed as personal.

I needed a reason, a logical ,valid reason and I ............would have understood, and I ...............would have been a friend for life. 

For, you cannot build something new by destroying the foundation below it. That is why I could never understand, why couples ran away, breaking all relationships, for the sake of one.
 
But I have understood the power of love, even the one sided kind. It gives the bearer an immense propensity to get hurt. And to that it also gives the other party a unique capability of hurting and humiliating you at the same time.I cant pray for her hurt, but I do pray that realization comes to her soon

I remember a girl from my days of freelancing; she kind of doted on me. But I couldn’t, and she understood that, and I am still in contact with her, no hard feelings anywhere. 

And I respect her, I respect her for having the courage to tell me, and to understand my limitations.

To wrap up , Dr Kumar Vishwas poetry, as understood by me is out here." If you cannot see , feel or understand my passion , you cannot ever experience the same yourselves " 

Click here - Table of Contents
  1. Prelude 
  2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
  3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
  4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
  5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within
  6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove ?!
  7. Chapter 6 - Krishna Upadesh
  8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!
  9. Epilogue

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Noorie..................!


How the hell this did guy know about it ?

Noorie was a Bhatti acquaintance, a shapely with muscles that could give air vacuum a run for its hold. 

I had learnt the ropes with her.

We were a wild pair, sneaking out always and she was one horny lady. I respected for just one thing; crystal clarity in life. 

Like Bhatti she had it all chalked out, she would be palmed off to the wealthiest landowner for the rest of her life, and she wanted some fun before it. 

She was crazy and her craziness acted like an impetus to my madness. 

The worst we had was a day locked in some far off room which she had arranged, with a load of nice and very very nice movies of every category imaginable. She insisted we…. well draw inspiration from all the stuff in there, and we did exactly that, just surviving on a pure carbohydrate diet, liquid carbohydrates.(!!) .I still remember the headache I had the next morning and the pain in the most obvious part .I

t was worse because there was nothing to throw out and feel better.

But I had told nobody about it, not even Bhatti….. how did this guy know??

Seeing the look of astonishment on my face , Krishna said "Noorie is from my village, I met her during a wedding at the village itself, and I mentioned that you studied near her place. She did not say anything but I could guess that you were up to something, and knowing Noorie it is not hard to guess".

I wanted Noorie suddenly...................

But her rules............. were clear, nothing doing after college. If she ever saw me near her place she would scream bloody murder.

And assured me that  she said she would be the first to swing the well oiled bamboo on my skull and ..................I had no doubt she doing it too.

Click here
  1. Prelude 
  2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
  3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
  4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
  5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within
  6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove ?!
  7. Chapter 6 - Krishna Upadesh
  8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!
  9. Epilogue
 That's all folks !! My tenacity  lasts only till Noorie..... :) Thanks to you all ........ if you have stuck around the entire GDC(Gyaan Distribution Ceremony!) of 
Priya....!

    Krishan Upadesh



    So, I had to travel to Bangalore during this drama time for yet another job interview, and my friend Krishna was there, serendipitously on the very two days I was there.

    We met up, and seeing my rather sorry self, he read me.

    “It is a girl right “? , he asked.

    I just stared at him, silent.

    ‘Tell me all about it. All…” , was the command............... not a request but........... a command.

    I poured my heart out to him. He was one of the people I could trust. I told him the summary of how I met her, how we started talking and how it blossomed up.

    He listened careful and holds your breath, drew a fucking process diagram all with connectors and block arrows. I stared at him, and said “you fine pal??  We are talking about something tangible, not some credit card transaction, or trading algorithm".

    " I know you and I know that there is no convincing you without logic trust me and just look at this "

    “You are prone to extremes, either you run or you laze there is no middle path. Knowing what you intended, I am guessing this was the right time of you. You lived life by the clock, and lost yourselves in work and structure. Discipline scares people.But trust me pal, not many people can handle you, you have insulted me many times, but you have stretched yourself thin to help me too”.

    “I think you stretched yourself for her too; you went over the extreme when it wasn’t warranted. She just used your presence in her life to supplement her standing, that’s the reality pal, she is just one other airhead, with the crookedness of a slut.Look at it this way, when ..”

    " Don’t you dare insult her!!" , I screamed, it was hurtful to hear anything demeaning about her.

    He shouted over me, “ass hole look at this diagram and understand.” Waving a piece of paper at me.

    Not many people can shout over me.

    I calmed down and said ‘Pal, I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. I am going to her place, where she is interning now and then from there I am going home. I am going to meet her and then finish it either ways, you got to respect a relationship”

    “Suit yourselves, but I am telling you she doesn’t have the balls, I have been in the field for nearly 4 years now and in my industry you see a lot of females, and I see airheads all the time. She is a classic case of one and you are in for more despair, and hurt. But I guess you need it. I do have one advice for you; take it out somewhere…so somewhere. Why don’t you write out your experience till now.”? ,  he said.

    “Write”…I asked…but what? “And isn’t that supposed to be personal”?

    " It is a catharsis of pain or thought.Whatever you just told me, rewind back and write it down, but keep in mind one thing, focus. There are always two side to a coin, we see what we wish to see, it is akin to a cricket match, every ball or every shot is flawed, its is either too short long, early late or not timed correct. 

    Similar is the case with people................. actions......... and.......... relationships. 

    If you wish to get over this, then assiduously pick out your experiences with her, and focus on the bad part of it, be critical, be cynical and wrest out a single emotion, and build upon them to get a picture of words. Leave it once you are done and then read it back after some time, it would give you a lot of relief."

    “What are you telling? Just because there is no reciprocation I can’t blame her… be critical of her. Everybody is entitled to have their feelings and thoughts I can’t force anything, or rather I don’t want to force anything, because as is the case with shit if hurts when you force it out and the outcome is not too great either” , I countered.

    Asshole, Ass…hole…he mouthed with specific emphasis on the hole part with a hearty laugh. In between guffaws he said ” I appreciate your candor, here you are broke, jobless and nursing a broken heart and not to mention your badly bruised Antarctica sized ego and you can still think of wisecracks” !

    His guffaws were helpful, a wee bit …

    “ It is entirely correct for a relationship to not work in the absence of reciprocation. However, it is wrong, hideous, and positively a crime to disrespect an individual for the presence of certain emotions.You should not play with anyone. One word, gesture, of “ DND” is not reason enough for a relationship to end, I have had my share, and I know it hurts “ ,  said Krishna
    Suddenly he was sounding very prophetic a very nostalgic too. It struck me that there was something which he again had not told me, he had shelved his hurt. The scene between him and me was sounding like the Lord Krishna of Bhagvad Gita lecturing the lost Arjuna in the battlefield of life.

    " Let’s get drunk, god knows you need it "  , said Krishna.( got to love this kind of Krishna!!)

    " I am on a budget" , I replied morosely.All my rules were going for a toss, one more broken would not do much harm, I thought.

    " I have plenty, don’t you worry " !! , came the retort.

    To which I replied " I don’t want any inferior stuff, let’s go to a huge place.....and ....I trailed off, looking into the horizon.....

    " You want Noorie right?"  , he asked mischievously.

    Noorie ...... The beginning .......... and ....now ......... it seems ........the end as well !! 

    Click here
    1. Prelude 
    2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
    3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
    4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
    5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within
    6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove ?!
    7. Chapter 6 - Krishna Upadesh
    8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!
    9. Epilogue

    Wednesday, January 5, 2011

    When Push Turns to Shove ?!


    That was the last, I would see of her, the very last. I still did not have a job having been pretty choosy, earlier. Now at the end of the season I was scared I would be left high and dry. She left that very day, to her new place for a couple of months, for her internship.

    I did not make it to the station, or to her room for the ritual goodbyes. I did not know how I would react, and I did not want to do anything that would have embarrassed her. However, before leaving she did ask me to come and meet her once, and I promised her I would do that.

    We messaged pretty frequently. She showed no great interest in my work or my life, just a passing remark “Oh that’s good, just hang on don’t worry something nice would happen”.

    Slowly, the distance seemed to have caught up with us. I sensed a marked difference in the way she conversed with me now, the deference, and the respect was slowly waning away. It’s funny how people change, really very. Messages, chats calls all the initiatives were now largely unidirectional, which is not good for a healthy relationship. There has to be reciprocation in type not merely the existence of a sympathetic, patient audience.

    I once asked her about vacancies in the place she interned. Her tone changed from conversational to one of unhidden contempt, so much so that I was shaken by the intensity of it. Either she is not really happy with her place or she seems to think it is heights of ineptitude on my part to ask for a push in the right place.

    The former did not seem to be true, as she seemed rather happy with her work. That left the latter, which  ostensibly indicated her juvenile and immature self. Two years in school I have understood , education is just one part of it, relationships are more important or rather the only takeaway. I had once got an assignment from a friend who I met for 2 hours on a train journey and I still ask for her help on some creative aspects if my work demands it.

    The same stuff which used to interest her, my impromptu acronyms on situations, teaser names, and humor now seemed to be irritating her. Once I referred to her as a princess indicating her standing among her gang of friends, and she snapped back almost ready to bite” I am not a princess, and please stop calling me that”.

    I thought it was workplace pressures, for the first time I joined an office I too had slight trouble transgressing from an academic to a corporate profile. I could make out that her family was conservative to the C, and the ostensible development of a non societal relationship between us was scaring her and maybe she needed more time.

    I did everything possible to justice her behavior, but as we have a saying in Hindi, loosely translated, the more leeway you give the more audacious become the bets. No matter how well you dress a stable boy, in royal clothes, there will always be a tiny speck of shit in his spit polished shoes.

    Same is the case with deference.

    Some people are patently not qualified to handle deference. If you treat a donkey like a horse just because it has four legs, it does not get the same elegance of a horse automatically.

    “I won’t change, so please don’t have any hope about the relationship between us, I would like to be good friends with you nothing more”, that was the curt, haughty response I got from her on one call, no correction that’s on chat, she did not have the basic courtesy of even calling me and being respectful about ending it.

    But you know the thing with promise; it is very hard to break one.

    It is like the tiny morsel of food, caught between your teeth somewhere, you just have to remove it. You loll your tongue use your fingers and finally use a tooth brush. 

    The same happened, I called, then texted and then mailed. Finally I decided to meet her once to close it.

    It is funny as to how much hurt one person is capable of causing in other. There is always a reason,  a method to madness and nobody could wish that away or run away from it. There was a reason for hope to exist, between us, and that was pleasure and happiness, by the same logic there has to be a reason for it to not exist. There was a time when she and me were both having a good time, just because we were not physical close, was no reason to terminate.

    Anyway this is guessing, for I still do not know the reason as to why she pushed me away from her or in modern colloquialism dumped me without even telling me the reason.

    Hurt, humiliated, confused, and at cross roads, without a decent job to my credit, (but a loan  on my head, !)n my I got a call from a place in Bangalore after a lot of pushes from my end.

    Tuesday, January 4, 2011

    One Day There Might be Magic Within !


    It was nearing my end at B-school. There were a lot of things unsaid, between us but not in the realm of not knowing. I blurted out, my heart to her in one chat session.

    And, the typical female response of “Oh, I never looked at you that way”. popped out.” A little later she says” I knew this was coming a long time back, but I am still surprised it came “(What the heck does someone mean by that?)

    For the first time in my life I asked a girl out to spend time with me. She agreed readily, I planned on an early morning trip to the beach to witness sunrise and she was also fine with it.

    We made it pretty early to the beach. Neither of us had any sleep the last night. It was a time I could never forget, it was magical.

    I had seen her out of her gang, of some people. just about now .She looked very sexy, sitting cross legged on the shore line; with the wind blowing her long hair which quiet did not augur well to a braid dangling at her back.

    “Priya”, I mouthed softly.

    She was lost!

    “Priya”, this time I nudged her gently.

    “Yes”, came the barely audible reply

    “Dear, I really like your company and I guess we get along pretty well”, I said.

    I waited for a response, none was forthcoming, and I pushed on.” Can I call you once you are away from this place?

    “Yes of course you can call me, we are friends”, she replied hurriedly.

    My heart got cold; the soaring bird of hope was run over by the trampling hammer legs of a million mad elephants, high on toddy.

    “Can you give me some time to figure that part out”? , I asked softly.

    “Time…. where is time”? She asked, “I am going now, and you don’t know where you would head off with your work, how can we spend time”?

    “Do you wish that I be in Chennai?”

    “Of course…. nobody has made me smile the way you do!!” she countered with one of her smiles

    Something………..warm course inside me. The mad elephants started sobering down and there was a flutter as one broken wing flapped weakly.

    The broken bird of hope that was trampled upon brutally, countless number of times dared flutter its wings. I too, hoped that someday there might be magic within.

    The early morning rays and the gentle lap of waves together were soothing and enchanting. I seemed to lose control at the sight of her.

     I leaned closer to her, and was shaken powerfully by her …smell. She did not use any perfume or deodorant and the smell of her sweat was intoxicating; a hot blooded female smell that made my heart race wild.

    Hormones surging all over I leaned closer and placed my hands over her shoulders, she was warm.

    The chilly morning breeze, made her warmth all too endearing.

    She made no effort to reduce the dangerous proximity, nor did anything to increase it, but just faced the lapping waves.

    A gust of breeze, and her t shirt fluttered. I could see her breasts, perfectly round and with fuzzy hair near the nipples. I was seized with a sudden desire to hold her, kiss her and just smell her nice female smell.

    But something told me it was wrong. I removed my hand and shifted slightly.

    “I would call you daily; I need to hear the sound of your voice”

    She did not reply, just stared into the space, uncharacteristically quiet. She was hiding something, and that was ominous.

    The queasy feeling that I had about her in the first meeting, came back this time stronger. “Is she really what I think she is”? I thought “A woman with a head, a woman with a heart and the best and mostly missing piece of a backbone connecting the two”

    We drove back, and making our way to the campus, I told” It is ok to be scared, “

    To which she replied, “I don’t know what to say that except I don’t know…I don’t know anything”.

    For the very first time, I saw her reluctance to stand for her own self, her own happiness the first indication of the absence of a backbone.


    Click here
    1. Prelude 
    2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
    3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
    4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream 
    5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within 
    6. Chapter 5 - When Push Turns to Shove 
    7. Chapter 6 - Krishna leela
    8. Chapter 7 - Noorie !!

    Monday, January 3, 2011

    Can you Chase a Dream ?


    Females have a sixth sense, radar which beeps up when someone comes on the heart part. She was no exception, but what she did not realize was that she was playing with fire, or maybe that’s what I did not realize that she was one step ahead of fire, she was accursed fire.

    I became a bit like the wimps that are normally seen around and our companionship relationship moved to the “setting” part.

    The “setting” is what most of the opposite sex relationships are. The companionship relationships which manifest more often are of a “setting” in the literal as well as colloquial sense, more of a barter system. The guy gets the pleasure of having exclusive (not always, but hey ignorance is bliss!) privileged access to female company. This in turn is viewed differently by different sets of people, for instance the peers (of one kind) view it as a sign of superior masculine capabilities (physical or otherwise) cynics like me look at such ego boost seeking, males as desperados, low on self esteem. And in return for bestowing the grace of companionship females mostly extract services such as help with different kinds of work, menial or otherwise. For instance in organizational settings it manifests as leniency and in educational institutions as extended classroom preparation sessions.

    But in her case I allowed her to play with my mind. Without knowing anything about her work I agreed to help her. I made notes for her, and once even taught her something, from scratch.

    Hey I do not mean to disparage helping others; in fact am a helpful guy. However I believe in helping those who help themselves, there is no harm showing someone the way if they have made efforts to find it, but clearing a path for them from scratch is a definite no –no.

    Click here
    1. Prelude 
    2. Chapter 1 - Thunderbolt
    3. Chapter 2 - Times of Google
    4. Chapter 3 - Can you Chase a Dream ?
    5. Chapter 4 - One Day There Might be Magic Within