The Baby Name

If I wasn't clear in the previous blog post then let me announce this once more, D-cat is pregnant. Revised estimates on target date of delivery is Sep-23. So these days apart from going through all the pregnancy related stuff, that a couple has to endure, we are also finalizing the baby name. And as we are going through all this, I have realised that deciding a name is a process. A lot of things have to be considered before one narrows down on the name that the little fellow will either endure or enjoy for the rest of his/her life.

One could name a child after a popular or significant historic figure. Someone that a parent or both the parents idolise. This is very significant, in a way you not only honour your hero but also give your child a sense of identity and a message that will remain with him/her for the rest of his/her life. Some magnificent examples that I came across - Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Jim Reeves, Richard Nixon, Subhash Chandra Bose, Lancelot, Jhansi Rani. But what if you have 2 role models or both the parents want their respective role models in the baby's name. A mix two names in one is absolutely okay. In fact this puts even more weight on the name and makes him sound significant eg. Napoleon Einstein (this guy is a cricketer). Imagine when Napoleon Einstein is playing in the line-up of the Indian cricket team, who will give a damn about Tendulkar. Please believe me when I say that these are names of not the historic figures but the names given by the inspired parents to their new born.

One can also name a child after a quality that one would like that child to possess. There are two ways of doing this one is by simply giving the child the same name as the quality. Some superb real life examples that I came across are Soulwinner, Deathcheater, Pathfinder (ok I made-up the last 2). But the other and more the creative way is to name a child after an event that personifies that quality. For example - if you want a child to possess qualities like "Achievement"& "Success" (and nothing emulates achievement & success than man landing on the moon) then a good name can be Apollo 11 (also a real name, except for the 11 part).

One can also chose names after a city or a place in which the child was born like Shimla, Hrishikesh, Paris, Holland (all real names, people).

Recent trends and my research on the web has shown me that these days parents chose abstract names with a deep hidden meaning behind it. Kind of like a Dan Brown type code that the child needs to solve during the course of his/her life. These names help the child fit in with the crowd and yet stay unique. It can also be a mix of two hip names as well, to sound even cooler example Dylan + Frodo = Dyldo. (also a real name)

Of course, there are some other names that can make a child popular. This of course is not initially intended by the parents examples - D.K. Bose, P.K. Muteja (real names).

We?? Still looking for that perfect name...

Internet Voting In India Using UID

Nandan Nilekani is working on a UID for every individual in India. I think it can be used for internet voting. At least in the cities where people have started using internet for paying bills, transferring funds, buying/selling stuff so why can't people vote as well. I think this might do wonders in increasing voter turnout in cities, specially in the younger, facebook addicted, generation. I hope the guys who are working on this have already figured out this potential use of the UID. But I wanted to put it out there via my blog, just in case. I am sure that if you've read so far and if you are a person who uses internet regularly for checking email, social networking, banking, paying bills, buying/selling etc. you would have already made a mental list of the advantages that internet voting will have, specially in the cities. Well here are a few anyway:

1. The voter turnout amoung the young generation might just reach as high as 99%.
2. People in hospitals can vote.
3. People who are not in the city/town at the time of voting can vote
4. NRI's can vote
5. No bullying/threats at poll booths
6. No booth capturing (of course places where booths are captured might not have high percentage of internet voting)
7. People don't have to miss work. They just need 10-15 mins off and can cast their vote.

Possible problems:

1. Hacking
2. Overload
3. System Crash or bugs
4. Somebody may steal your UID and password and cast your vote

But I think these issues can be addressed and should not be a detterent to this idea. Of course if you are worried that someone might steal your UID and password then I think this is a matter of personal responsibility and not a drawback of this system.

The Noosphere

Some half cooked ideas and some thoughts for the reader's  pleasure and my records. Why for my records? Because if anything that I write below happens, I will have to opportunity to say - "I told you so."

Last evening when I was relaxing in onsen in my gym, it struck me, it was not just like the moment of Eureka, it was the moment of Eureka. A little bit of background first, the Little Green men in Toy Story series and Buzz Lightyear movie, live in a planet where they have developed a machine that keeps that connected all the time (in every sense imaginable). If someone discovers something, everybody knows. If someone is lost, everybody knows the location of the lost. This system has helped them develop a very strong community and which in turn has helped them fight against the invading aliens.

After a little bit of googling, yahooing, binging and yodeling (ok! I just googled)..I found out that these green men live in a planet called Noosphere.

Now the interesting part, "the Eureka moment", I realized that this is actually happening. We are e-mailing, blogging, facebooking, twittering, buzzing, orkuting, likedin-ing. All this is now available in our mobile devices. All this is networking, what about knowledge, news, data? Well do I really need to answer that?

Some companies and governments are working on a chip that can be implanted into our bodies (albeit its criticism) and so on. In short, we are now in some ways actually working toward the future as seen in the world of the little green men.

Somethings still need to be developed though and may perhaps be our biggest challenge before the noosphere can completely see the sunlight.

a. Democracy/Governance : The question or the challenge is - Can we really achieve facebook democracy? Something like the person with most no. of "Likes" is the president of the world. Sounds laughable, right?. And decisions are made instantly by real time consensus.

>> I am too excited about this aspect of noosphere (specially in the context of Indian politics) and so I want to discuss this in a separate post. Actually I am simultaneously drafting a sperate post for this.

b. Monetary system: We have internet banking but what about network banking? Honestly I don't know what "Network Banking" means. I just made it up. :)

c. Currency - Now this may sound crazy but why do we have exclusive currencies in all the countries. Since money is already dealt as a commodity in the trade markets then why not allow the common man to take advantage of all the currencies of the world like say soaps. Example, In a situation like this RBI and US Federal bank not banks but competing companies and their respective product being Rupee and Dollar.

d. Markets

e. Medical & Emergency situations - Since everybody in the noosphere know about everybody else, we can actually save more lives.

f. Disaster & Relief - Nobody can control natual disaster (right now) and even if in future we remain powerless against nature, we  will still have enough information to conduct swift and effective relief work.

g. Crime Control - Crime control in noosphere reminds me of Tom Cruise movie Minority Report but of course without the precogs.

Probably Facebook isn’t such a bad thing to happen to the world after all. It is a step toward the noosphere. Looking forward for the noosphere, developers are you listening.

This is 100

It started in June 2007 and 3 years and 6 months later on the December of 2010 it is 100 posts old. Well let's see what happened in this period.

This blog account was actually opened much much before I wrote my 1st blog post. Sarah Salins opened an account in Dec-2005 and edged me to open one too. Sarah has been married for over two year now and her blog is dead.


Dec-2007, First visit to Japan
Feb-2008, Barny got married.
Apr-2008, Permanently shifted to Japan
Aug-2009, Arvind got married.
Nov-2009, Buvana got married.

The Shoppers Stop
Well I guess Debbie and I can differ about the moment, or the day, when our relationship actually started but since Debbie doesn't write this blog, you get to hear only my side of the story. So we met in the church youth meeting at Salom Hills School in Gurgaon. In fact I and Barny use to pickup people who didn't have the means to come to the meeting. So we were suppose to pickup Bhanu, and Barbarra and her room-mate aka my wife. I said "Hi" to Debbie. Debbie will say that I didn't but I'm sure I did. That was our "first ever" meeting. This was sometime in the summer of 2007. Things moved on we met occasionally in the church, in youth meetings but the next singnificant meeting took place in Dec that year. At this time I was shopping for my trip to Japan. I had asked Bhanu to accompany me while I shop but at this point I don't exactly remember how Debbie ended up showing up that day. May be I only had invited her. I hope she doesn't kill me after reading this, but honey I as I said, I don't remember. Anyway, I bought loads of stuff... oops... I shouldn't say "bought" at this point, I picked up loads of stuff and arrived at the checkout counter and voila my credit card was not working and I had no cash in hand. Oh poor me!! dude in distress.. enter Debbie to the rescue she paid my bill and saved me from the humiliation. She saved the day. Later, I dropped her home that night and promised that I will return back her money the very next day.

No I didn't run away with her money, in fact I met her the very next day with the sole intention of giving back her cash. As it turned out, I had buy a suit as well so I asked her to accompany me to the mall. I was expecting the suit shopping to be over in 30 minutes and then adios... ta-ta..good bye.. but the suit that I bought needed to be altered and the shopkeeper promised that his tailor wouldn't take more that 10 minutes but he took more that 2 hours or so. So what was supposed to be a "Hi... thank you .. here's your money.. bye..see you around.." meeting turned out to be "lets have coffee..." I mean it became a date. And that's the beginning of our relationship.

No I'm not implying that that was the day I decided to marry her or I knew that she was the one or anything lovey-dovey like that.. but that was the "kick-off" of ,God only knew at that time, of a life long relationship.

Rest of the story... well may be later.

The Ponzi Scheme

I read this in "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nicolas Taleb and it appealed to my darker side. (Please note I have 2 sides one is dark and the other one is darker). So, imagine one fine day I decide to become a share market pandit and start predicting the future of the market on a monthly basis.My objective is to fool some people by making him believe that I do possess some genuine know how about the market and thus can actually forecast the future of the market. (But actually I don't know a thing about the market).Can I do that?

Ok, so I start with selecting 10000 random people and send them an emails. To 5000 people I send an email stating that the market will go up and to the remaining 5000 that the market will go down. Ok now let me do this systematically...


Jan: Prediction Group A (5000 people) - Market will go up , Group B (5000 people) - Market will go down
Actual outcome - Market goes down.

Feb : I dump contact Group A but from Group B, I send another email
Group C : 2500 people - market will go up; Group D: Market will go down
Actual outcome : market goes up

Mar: I dump group D, and send another email
Group E (1250 people) - market will go up, Group F: Market will go down..

and so on...

In April I will have 625, in May 312, in Jun 156, in July I would've accurately predicting the fate of the share market to 78 lucky people seven times in a row...

Now, imagine that you are one of these lucky people who has received this email 7 times in a row and before you receive the 8th one, the I send another email asking you to invest in a share or mutual fund... would you invest?

A Developed Nation

Japan rapidly grew from a catastrophic nuclear disaster to an economic super power. I've met people that were Young boys and girls when US dropped 2 Atomic bombs on Japan during the second world war. Remembering those days, these people tell me when their father's use to go out in the morning they didn't know whether or not they will be able to bring food for the family that day.

But they were determined people. Their farmers toiled hard in the fields, their workers worked hard in the factories and their leaders had vision. The vision of not just building a developed country but building a culture. They wanted to make their world the perfect world and as a result in less than a half a century, Japan was one of the most powerful economy in the world. Not just that, they were able to cultivate an environment where the people were humble, respected one another. Their streets are safe, clean and their country looked beautiful.

A job well done, I'd say. Now what to do...

As humans, we do things. We've climbed the top of the highest peak of the world, we've learned how to fly, we've walked on the moon. We communicate with each other at the speed of light. We have sent objects out of the solar system. And everyday we are breaking the boundaries of thought. I guess the reason we do these things is not just because we can, but to make this world a better place.

But what do you do when you've already made your place the better place? Japan (and may be some other European countries) is the example of the end result of the development. There is no inflation, indicating that the economy has grown to its peak and can't grow any further. The government can't put money in infrastructure projects to boost the economy because everything they needed to build has been build. The country is growing old, people are not interested in having kids because Nintendos and X-box's are more fun and easy to handle. They've got night clubs and bars where men pay women to just sit with them and hold hands. They care about their environment alright so they import all their timber from other countries. 

Some perfect world huh!

Black Clouds

Ever wondered why some clouds are dark and some are white? Well I did not, but I always assumed that dark clouds bring rain and white ones just float. Anyway, today I saw an interesting thing about this on the return flight to Tokyo. As we were flying I saw a thick cloud sheet below me and patches of clouds above. The areas where clouds above were casting shadows on the clouds below were darker than the surrounding clouds. I think a darker cloud would mean that there are more layers of clouds on top of the lowest layer of cloud.

Simply Complicated

Recollecting a conversation that I had with Arvind a couple of years back about an incident that happened during my school days. You see,in school I was with a bunch of extremely talented and brilliant people that used to challenge each other in problems in mathematics.On one such day we were trying to solve a trigonometry problem and during the process I tried to solve the problem by using theorems after theorems in order to arrive at the solution but I only ended up making the problem more complicated. On the other hand a friend of mine, who apparently is a genious, was able to solve the same problem in just 3 or 4 steps. The lesson learnt was that best solutions to complicated problems are always simple and are beautiful. And a real genious can solve a problem in the most simplest way.

Later in life I came to know that the revelation above that I had was somewhat in line with Occams Razor which says, all things being equal the simplest solution is the best. Added to the fact that for quite some time now the smartest minds of our species too are trying to find out the common pattern in all that there is or should I say the single theory of everything. It makes sense, right? There can be nothing simpler than being able to explain all that there is by a unified theory.

Now the obvious question that comes into my mind is that if a possibility exists that there is a unifying theory that explains everything in the physical aspect of our life then what about the spiritual aspect of our life? Is it possible that here too only one possibilty exists and if that is true than who is this God and what is the means to know him. Well this post is not entirely about the God conundrum, it's about simplicity, so I'll move on but I will discuss this one more time in this post because it's important.

I held my views about simplicity for a long time and I was pretty convinced about it too. Untill recently I read a few things that made me question my original set of beliefs. And I realised that those beliefs were based on a certain set of assumptions that now stand on shaky ground in the light of some new discoveries.

~I always like to keep my blog posts small and also my mind is over crowded with ideas and is running in many directions so I'll take a small break and get back on this in a day or two.~

Random Thought

A few days back one of my friends shared a video on facebook. Have a look at it :



This is a time lapse video of the Perseids meteor shower that was visible in Tokyo around the same time last month. Also before I dwell in the philosopy check out this video as well.



These are just a few examples of the both discovered and undiscovered wonders of the universe that can be seen from our planet. Over the last century our technology has enabled us to witness and understand much more. And as our equipment improves - which it has and will- we will, no doubt, be even more astonished by what we get to see and understand.

But I've realised that man can't really understand the universe, we only observe and make notes of patterns. I mean we only understand the patterns. Even the greatest mind of our civilization Einstein was looking for a common pattern in everything. But we all know that he failed to figure out that pattern. May be towards the end he realized that a thing so vast and so complex cannot be weaved into a single theory. It's like an ant trying to understand the purpose of an aircraft.

Some of us on the other hand think that everything is for us. Even-though we don't even know what that "everything" comprises of, again it's like an ant thinking that the aircraft was made for it.

The ant can never comprehend the aircraft nor the aircraft was made for it.

I guess may be sometimes we should take a step behind, relax an enjoy this amazing ride.

My Life's Score Card

Truthfulness - F
Honesty - F
Humbleness - F
Love - F
Discipleship - F
Principles - F
Kindness - F
Content - F
Faith - A
Grace - A

RESULT - SAVED

It's OK

After a very long time the poet in me woke up. Just a few seconds before I woke up this morning I had a dream that I was singing in a church. Actually, I was singing only the "it's OK" part again and again with "coz you are there" tossed in occasionally. Obviously it must have been the chorus. So the first stanza of the song has been composed in my complete consciousness. And therefore sounds a bit of a cliche but it's OK as long as it is my own composition. Well, I think I'll try to complete the song and make it more deep and meaningful. But right now I must brush my teeth. :)

It's OK

My heart can sing
in you o Lord,
My life is true
with you o Lord,
And even though
I fail and fall
at every single step

coz when you are in my life 
It's OK (repeat several times)
coz you are there....

Horn Please

Alright, I had almost forgotten that I had this blog. :)

I am back in India and it's awesome!!*

*Except for the frikkin' iron melting blast furnace like weather.

Anyway, after what seems to be a very short amount of time, I am back in India. And right now, I have a surface coating of "The Japanese way" on me. And before it whithers away and before I too get back to "The Indian way", I must point out some typical and some not so typical differences between the people of India and Japan.

It will not be a surprise for most of you to know that people aborad honk only at dire circumstances or to express their frustration at the someone on the road. I was wondering why then people in India honk for almost every thing until I saw HORN PLEASE written at the back of a truck. It was a moment of epiphany where I realised that it is not that we want to honk all the time, it is the person in the other vehicle or on the road that wants us to honk. Because only when we honk, will they do something.

My mom was very sick when I arrived in Delhi and so I had to take her to the hospital. Nope, I am not about the rip apart the health care system of this country. But I wanted to talk about the attitude and manners of the people who run these places. Starting from the receptionists and to every single staff person (clerks, nurses, lab techicians and doctors) that I met in that night behaved badly. I wondered why these people are working in a hospital in the first place. So yes, Mata Chanan Devi Hospital in Janakpuri is the worst hospital in Delhi in my list.

I guess this post is turning into hardcore criticism instead of light hearted sattire. So, I'll continue this very soon. No promises :)

Autumn and Lily

The park near my home is telling me that autumn has completely set in. The orange, red, yellow of the leaves that had turned into brown is gone too. Thanks to the rain last Sunday, the leaves that were clinging on their branches couldn't hold on any longer and fell off. Leaving the tress behind to face the unforgiving winter alone. The park that was once brimming with life, color and excitement now lies barren, dark and lonely.

Just around the corner of this park is Hana kōnā, a small flower shop, owned by an old Japanese lady. Today, when I saw her setting up her shop for the evening, laying down the roses, tulips, lilies, daisies, orchids... Red, white, blue, pink, purple... sprinkling water over them and trimming the petals. I said to myself, "What! Spring? Now? Is this right? Surely, this isn't right. Why is she doing this? Why is she robbing me and everyone else the joy of waiting for the spring. When the buds will pop out of the branches and the trees will be full of beautiful flowers. Why can't we leave the somethings the way they are? Aren't we already we living artificial lives, manipulating our environment living in air conditioners and room heaters. Is there nothing called Seasons anymore?

I approached the shop, I read "Sale - only 198 yen per pc". The old lady saw me and gave me a little smile. I smiled back to her in response but more than that I was smiling over myself as I said to her, "One lily please!" and then said to myself, "Happy Birthday". :-)

Motorcycles that don't Fall

So I've been toying with this idea for a very long time now, definitely more than a year. And so I far I haven't done anything about it except for writing it down on a piece of paper. But then I saw this and thought that the least that I can do is to post this on my blog. Unfortunately youtube has disabled embedded video, so you'll have to go to youtube to watch the video.

See the video before you read any further.

All right! I hope that the motorcycle terminators got hold of your attention. More interestingly I hope that you were impressed by their maneuverability, how these motorcycles/terminators skillfully tackled the obstacles, that were being thrown at them, without losing their balance.

It may seems like an act of genius, although with out a doubt it is, but the science of falling while turning is very simple. When a motorcycle is turning there are two forces acting on it; the centripetal force and the centrifugal force. Centripetal force pulls the vehicle towards the inside of the circle and the centrifugal force pushes the vehicle outside. For a perfect turn these two forces should be balanced. In other words if centrifugal forces is higher then the vehicle will fall inside and if the centripetal force is higher the vehicle will fall outside.

I hope you haven't dozed off already. OK! if you are with me till now then let me continue. :)

The challenge is to make sure that every single time someone takes a turn, or in case of the terminator motorcycles dodging objects at 50mph, these forces remain balanced. Meaning that these forces remain equal an opposite to each other (remember Newton's 3rd Law of Motion?). Because this mismatch of the forces will make the motorcycle to lose its balance. And this usually happens so quickly that by the time the rider realizes that he's about to fall he actually falls.

So what are the factors that are governing these forces and affecting the fall? Well, there are 2 factors namely ; speed of the motorcycle and the radius of turn. That means to prevent a motorcycle from falling or to ensure that the forces acting on a motorcycle are balanced while turning all we need to do is tweak these two factors.

All we actually need are a couple sensing device and a couple of actuating devices that can perform the following functions:
a. A sensing device to measure the radius of turn (we already have that kind of device - it's called lean angle sensor - all FI bikes have it as a standard regulation but for a different reason.)
b. Speed sensor (all motorcycles have a speedometer)
c. An actuating device that will control the front wheel of the motorcycle. (meaning it will increase or decrease the radius of the turn by bypassing the rider and turning the front wheel based on requirement) - this thing needs to be invented
d. An actuating device that will control the speed of the vehicle (meaning it will increase or decrease the speed by bypassing the rider based on requirement)
e. And of course a small computer that would interpret and analyse the data sent by the sensors and direct the actuators to perform the action in micro-milli-seconds.

So how will this work? Well, I'll explain that later, the post has become too long already.

The Homecoming Part 2

continuing from where I had left a few days back...

6. Church: Thanks to Arvind, Karisa and their friend Jessy, for a brief period of time, I had good fellowship in a small church. The service was almost similar in structure to which I was accustomed to back in India. The people were very friendly, the atmosphere in the church was very warm and cozy and I did make a few friends there but unfortunately I didn't attend the church regularly enough and when after a gap of about 6 months I went there they had moved from there location. They should have updated their website at-least but they didn't and so I lost them. Later I started attending another church but it was more of a rock club called Committed Japan with Bible on the menu. There Sunday service was held in a coffee shop called Kick-Back Cafe (Sounds rocking! doesn't it? No, it's not.)

7. Autumn: To me autumn is much more beautiful than spring or sakura (in Japanese). Unfortunately I don't have autumn pictures to share right now. My current residence (notice the usage of word 'residence' and not 'home') in Sailer Komatsugawa (Higashiojima Metro Station) is located very close to Arakawa river and Nakagawa water canal. Arakawa has a very famous (and by famous I mean - It's a tourist attraction during spring season) Sakura tree belt on its banks whereas Nakagawa has clusters of Autumn trees on its banks (not famous). The scenic beauty of the trees on the banks Nakagawa in Autumn is beyond comparison with the what Arakawa has on offer during spring.

I always firmly believe that memories are not about places, it's about people and the experiences that you get to share with them. For me, unfortunately, Japan has been more like a place where I got to spent 2 years of my life but didn't get to share the experience. Anyway, it'll be over soon.

The Homecoming Part 1

Very soon I'll be back in India and Japan will fade into the memories of the days gone by. Overall I can say that this has been a mixed bag. I've missed my family, my church and friends. And the work on most days wasn't exciting. But there have been some things that I've liked and some that I'll miss in when I am back in India.

1. The first one without a doubt is Shinkansen (or the Bullet Train) - It is an engineering marvel. Just the fact that you're sitting in a vehicle that's moving at 300kph on land is amazing. I had a great desire to sit in the cockpit and see how it feels when everything seems to be coming at you at that speed, well may be later. You can check out the video that I had recorded at Nishi Akashi (Kawasaki Headquarters). I am really sorry that when Arvind came to Tokyo I couldn't take him on a trip in Shinkansen.

2. Mt. Fuji Trek - I took about 15 hrs to climb on top of Mt. Fuji last summer. From the foot to the peak Mt. Fuji is about 3700 mts. And I started trekking from Station 5, which is about 2300 mts. I know, I took too long to reach the top but the crater of a volcano is one of the coolest things to see. Japanese don't climb Fuji to see the crater rather they climb Fuji to see the sunrise at 3700 mts. For me, it wasn't great.
(Regret - I wish I could've seen some lava flowing or at least some toxic smoke coming out of the crater.)

3. Sushi and Wasabi- Yup the lethal combination of raw fish and the stingiest spice of the world. If you haven't eaten Sushi till now, take my word you've really missed something. And Sushi bars are amazing, I mean for all those of you who know and have heard about JIT systems or The Toyota Way, a Sushi Bar is the epitome of all the principles that are being taught in the institutions and are being practiced by organisations all over the globe.

4. Fireworks - If you ignore the journey to and the return back from the place where these firework festivals take place and a million people who come to the show, the fireworks are are a treat to the eye. You can check out the link and see a few pics of the fireworks but it's no where close to what I'm talking about.

5. Konami - Swimming and gyming were the reasons I had joined the club but I've made some really good Japanese friends there. Most people think that Japanese are introvert people and mind there own business. Yes, that's true but what's also true is that these people are really loving, friendly and helpful. I won't say they are funny because I don't get their sense of humor.

It's a bit late now, rest later...

Capitalism

I think that Labour unions are like cancer to the industries. Honda Motors and scooters India (HMSI) has been a 'victim' (notice the inverted commas - I'll come to this later) such labour unrest where the productivity of the factory has been severely hampered, which affects sales, which affects profits and which ultimately affects the salaries. And I think these unions are basically fighting for the increase in salaries. A simple relation that the unions have failed to understand. My complete sympathies for the management.

But this is just one side of the coin. What about the labour side? Frankly, I don't know the real issues that the labour unions of HMSI are facing. And actually this post is not about the labour issue of HMSI. It's about the company in which I am working. I won't disclose the name of my company but by the HMSI example one can fairly guess that I too am in a related industry (but I'm not working in another OEM).

My company made severe cost cuts in the name of recession in the beginning of this financial year. Stripping away the basic necessities such as Air conditioning in office space, stationary, allowance for mobile phones, transport in case someone had to make an official visit. Every new hiring now requires approval from the the M.D. Which has basically compelled the managers to force their employees to stay late night. Sometimes the employees are working for the entire night, then they go back home in the morning, freshen up and return to work (without overtime). Some of these cost cuts were not focused on actually cutting the expenses normally incurred by the company but were more or less cheap tricks to take out money from the employee's pocket. Apart from cost cuts, the company also introduced monetary penalties on its employees for delay in meeting a deadline.

Now somebody might say that it's justified keeping in mind that our focus should be on greater things, that we need to keep on going and survive this critical period and later things will return to normal. But wait till I tell more.

The marketing team of my company was in tremendous pressure from the management to get better prices from the OEMs. Since the volumes were 'supposedly' going down and the profits were decreasing. The marketing team worked hard and got better prices. Soon after that the raw material prices came tumbling down. As you might remember the crude oil prices that were over $150 per barrel same time last year are now around $50 per barrel. Almost the same thing has happened with all the other raw material prices globally. So now we have a situation where we are selling the goods at a higher price whereas our raw material costs are down by over 30%.

It's still justified, don't you think, considering that the volumes are down and the fixed costs are the same. Yes it is justified.

But, how about the fact that the volumes are much better. Maruti, Tata, Honda, Hero Honda, Bajaj, Yamaha and many other OEMs have in fact registered significant growth over the previous year in India in-spite of the on going recession.

There were some increments in the company recently at operator level and junior staff level. But they are like peanuts when you see the overall scenario. Management says that there will be no further increments. Reason - What if the recession comes back?

So basically at the end of this year all the hardwork, sweat, talent of passionate employees will get converted into serious money and will will go in one man's pocket. Coming back to the part where I had said that HMSI is a victim. Now if I consider a similar story in HMSI also, can I really say that HMSI is a victim?

Like, I mean, You know...

I read somewhere that Geniuses don't repeat what they say while others repeat what they say several times mostly by rephrasing their sentences without adding any new information in the process. If an ordinary guy, like me, has to explain something he or she will be repeating and rephrasing his sentences and conveying the information that he or she has already conveyed.

Anyway, I decided to conscientiously observe myself and others in order to verify whether or not this is correct. And believe it or not, it's true. All of us (including myself) use phrases such as - Like, I mean, You know etc. as starting or connecting phrases. I don't know why we do this, but we do. I also decided to see if this is because of the influence of contemporary cinema or television, but it isn't. The dialogues in movies and TV shows convey whatever they have to very crisply. I guess they have to, otherwise people will walk out of the hall or switch to another channel on TV.

I mean, I read somewhere that Geniuses don't repeat what they say while others repeat what they say several times... :)

The Urban Guy

I always feel that I am lucky that I grew up in Delhi. Apart from good opportunities in terms of career, I think the atmosphere in Delhi taught me to be tolerant and open minded. During my growing years I learned to respect other cultures, opinions and most of all respect for an individual irrespective of caste, color or sex (Thanks to good schooling and progressive parenting).

So, I don't think that it's too much to expect that the people who have grown up with me in Delhi under similar circumstances, who have done their schooling from similar schools and who have well educated parents to be more or less like me when it comes to basic character and ethics.

Below is an abstract from a recent chat I had with an old acquaintance:

(We were talking about marriage in this part)

Me: tere end pe kya scene chal raha hai?
Urban: yaar kaam settle ho gaya to definitely next year
Me: sounds right vese bhi i guess 27-28 is the appropriate age i guess
Urban: dont know yaaaar i tell u one funda... :) girls are like fruits... first lot market mein aata hai 18-22 saal ka lucky guys get that fresh ripen lot
Me: then?
Urban: then second lot aata hai 23-26 saal ka usually used or smthg but still manageable phir aata hai last lot 27 - 30 saal ki ladkiyoon ka rarely good piece in the cart if u get one u r lucky otherwise accept it and move on :)
Me: OMG! Gurudev..
Urban: hehehe funde :)
Me: i don't have time for this rt now bt someday i'll love to know what exctly do u mean by "GOOD LOT" or if u can explain inshort
Urban: nothing for it good lot means good looking, fresh, .... etc etc just imagine a mango cart :) in mng, afternoon and eve
Me: u r treating girls like commodity man.. not the right approach . to find someone with whom u plan to spend rest of ur life with
Urban: lol.. not treating dude.. drawing analogy big diff the thing was.. that its better to find one by 26 otherwise difficult later on u took it in wrong sense LOL

After this I didn't feel like talking to him about this subject and digressed.

Urban is a guy of my age, grew up in Delhi, lives in one of the top residential location in Delhi, has done his schooling from a good school, is a shrewd fellow and has a successful career but I feel sorry to know him and I feel sorry for the mango he'll get married to.

Random Thoughts and Scribbles

Sometimes I feel guilty for not posting on this blog on a regular basis. I guess one of the reason is that I try to put what I think are my best ideas and thoughts, things that make sense and meaning, are complete, and if all of the above are in order then I need time to give words to those ideas so that every thing looks good.

All this has ultimately resulted in a nearly dead blog. But I can assure you that this blog is anything but dead, I'm always thinking about it, it's just a lot of stuff ends up just as a mere idea in my head or a scribble in the writer and saved as a draft. So, most of the time when I have a good idea either it's incomplete or it's not making much sense or I don't find enough time to put it in decent words.

I've decided to turn things around a bit and put those raw ideas into incomplete stories. Random thoughts even though they may sound stupid or ridiculous, things that come into my head, reflections, mental notes that I make while waiting for the train or while walking across a road intersection or while shopping. Things that I've learned, things that made me say Ahh!, perspectives, opinions, and many more things.

Just think that I'll be writing this to a friend to whom I just wish to say - I wish you were here.