yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
last friday in office..i will have to come for some formalities on monday and tuesday but i have completed my work and will be just coming to chat, blog and for full time aish..looking forward to IIM Lucknow fresher's party on saturday and then watching Bunty and babli...
anyway last one year in tavant was fruitful in ways and in some ways hectic.. i couldnt go onsite because of CAT and my own inability to match up with my peers in office. but then finally i was able to realise my dream of studying at IIM. so it was overall a good year:-)
now lets see how much IIM L has to offer..
Friday, May 27, 2005
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Tirupati
A trip to tirupati is always considered to be a milestone in a life of every hindu devotee and since i felt i should bethankful for all that God has bestowed me with, I promply booked my tickets and went over to Tirupati a week back courtesy Tirupati-Tirumala travels or should I thank APSRTC i am not sure about that. I suppose there is no need to thank anyone since i paid a lot of money but then on hind sight the journey was pretty smooth and hassle free which is to say a lot coz most of my sojourns have been quite a pain most of the time.
It was a friday and the bus was at seven at a place far away from my home so had to scamper back home and pack things up by 6 and reach the bus stop. The bus as is the wont of all its caste and creed turned up late and the time was well spent in looking at the empty race course nearby and wondering as to how it would be when in use. Any how when the bus did arrive, it was not surprising to find that the TV was chanting holy shlokas praising Lord Balaji to the skies for the entire duration of the journey. God has his own ways of making people listen to good things and in my case I was able to hear some shlokas ( without understanding them of course) over the radio city I was hooked onto using my cell phone. So much for wishing for a sound sleep. I did sleep off later only to woken up immediately at 3 am. We had reached a hotel or ashram or whatever u call it but it was a monolithlic hotel with lots of rooms and we were informed that we should take a bath and come back in an hour. we duly did that but then there are always some ppl who get a manic pleasure in being late for everything so we started late and reached the hill top at about 5 am. Even then it was not really shocking to find that almost 500 ppl were already standing before us and waiting for their chance. However we were able to do the darshan and stuff by 7:30 am. It was a bit of a let down that we were able to just get a sneek peek at the deity for whom we had come so far. The ppl who were monitoring devotee movements were pushing the devotees quite roughly that helped in making the system effective ( as there was little or no clogging) however i wouldnt give them much marks for maintaining aesthetics.
However it was a moving experiance to witness so many ppl having so much faith in that place and faith is what accords a place its religious importance and lends spiritual value.
Anyway we were back in the bus by 8 am and came back to the monolithlic whatever i mentioned before and had our breakfast. even at 8-9 am the weather was becoming humid and the heat reaching intolerable levels so I guess it must be requiring more that simply religious fanatism to go there late in the afternoon. We had to go to some other temple made in honour of Lord Balaji's consort. I skipped going to the temple and prayed from outside and went window shopping instead. Even as i was raring to get a sound sleep on the way back they started showing the movie 'dhoom' at such high decibels that the options of doing anything other than watching the movie were next to nill. however the movie was worth watching more than once and so the time seemed well spent. Needless to mention that the coach was an AC coach and hence it was much easier to relax inside.We reached back at 4pm and thankfully without sun burns.:)
This was one trip I was waiting for quite some time and I think I was lucky to go there. I didnt find any particular reason why this temple was so different from myriads of other temples we see all over the country but then its all a matter of faith.
It was a friday and the bus was at seven at a place far away from my home so had to scamper back home and pack things up by 6 and reach the bus stop. The bus as is the wont of all its caste and creed turned up late and the time was well spent in looking at the empty race course nearby and wondering as to how it would be when in use. Any how when the bus did arrive, it was not surprising to find that the TV was chanting holy shlokas praising Lord Balaji to the skies for the entire duration of the journey. God has his own ways of making people listen to good things and in my case I was able to hear some shlokas ( without understanding them of course) over the radio city I was hooked onto using my cell phone. So much for wishing for a sound sleep. I did sleep off later only to woken up immediately at 3 am. We had reached a hotel or ashram or whatever u call it but it was a monolithlic hotel with lots of rooms and we were informed that we should take a bath and come back in an hour. we duly did that but then there are always some ppl who get a manic pleasure in being late for everything so we started late and reached the hill top at about 5 am. Even then it was not really shocking to find that almost 500 ppl were already standing before us and waiting for their chance. However we were able to do the darshan and stuff by 7:30 am. It was a bit of a let down that we were able to just get a sneek peek at the deity for whom we had come so far. The ppl who were monitoring devotee movements were pushing the devotees quite roughly that helped in making the system effective ( as there was little or no clogging) however i wouldnt give them much marks for maintaining aesthetics.
However it was a moving experiance to witness so many ppl having so much faith in that place and faith is what accords a place its religious importance and lends spiritual value.
Anyway we were back in the bus by 8 am and came back to the monolithlic whatever i mentioned before and had our breakfast. even at 8-9 am the weather was becoming humid and the heat reaching intolerable levels so I guess it must be requiring more that simply religious fanatism to go there late in the afternoon. We had to go to some other temple made in honour of Lord Balaji's consort. I skipped going to the temple and prayed from outside and went window shopping instead. Even as i was raring to get a sound sleep on the way back they started showing the movie 'dhoom' at such high decibels that the options of doing anything other than watching the movie were next to nill. however the movie was worth watching more than once and so the time seemed well spent. Needless to mention that the coach was an AC coach and hence it was much easier to relax inside.We reached back at 4pm and thankfully without sun burns.:)
This was one trip I was waiting for quite some time and I think I was lucky to go there. I didnt find any particular reason why this temple was so different from myriads of other temples we see all over the country but then its all a matter of faith.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
movies :-)
I am watching lots of movies nowadays..saw kingdom of heaven a week back. Nice movie and well made. That is the only factor that distinguished it from troy.. ( Troy relied heavily on achillis and hector for the success of the movie. though i was pretty impressed with the role played by hector) KOH has a good story and Orlando Bloom looks gullible enuf to endear the audience towards him. However the movie misses a charater like russel crowe who took gladiator to great heights. hence i will be surprised if KOH gets any oscars for acting.The actress who played Isabel was beautiful but wooden and in one scene she did get out some guffaws from the audience when she asked bloom whether he didnt know the reason why she was in his room late at night when she was honourable married to another guy:-)
The king of jerusalem played by Norton and Salah-ud-din played by some one else were roles well etched out and scott gave these characters a lot of respect. Infact the best lines in the movie were given to the king of jerusalem. If he had lived he wud have changed history from what I heard of him.
I also saw Cleopatra that weekend making it a weekend of period movies for me. Cleopatra was a good infact great classic..the chemistry between liz taylor and richard burton was sizzling and timothy dalton also played the part of caesar really well.words fail me when i try to talk abt liz taylor's performance as the protagonist. this is a film worth watching just for her..She is a woman with all her failings and reminds one of Scarlett O'hara in gone with the wind. An irrepresible woman she wanted everything in life and died a sad woman.
another thing i noticed about the movie was that caesar was shown as a great king and general and a person capable of decision making and leading his men to victory while marc antony( the right hand man of caesar) was a capable general who was good at leading an army but not good at decision making. He had to be told by Cleopatra what should be done and not using his brains whether it was right or wrong. he later proved to be a simpleton and forced into a battle with Rome unwillingly.He gives a lot of food for thought for wannabe managers. Every person is capable of some tasks and does them well. however if he is good at one thing he might not be equally good at all things. An efficient person may not be an equally good at innovativeness. For a manager it is imperative to find out what are the things he is good at and try them only. Its not that he shouldnt try his hand at other skills but if it hurts the organisation then he should refrain. while delegating work to others he shud find out what the person is good at instead of assigning tasks in an arbit manner and thus decreasing efficiency. enuf funde for today:-)
I watched the matrix series again to try to interpret what the movie is trying to portray. Somehow watching the movies one feels that it is sending out a message about karma and the purpose of life and the need of "choice" which distinguishes us from robots.
well more on that later:-)
The king of jerusalem played by Norton and Salah-ud-din played by some one else were roles well etched out and scott gave these characters a lot of respect. Infact the best lines in the movie were given to the king of jerusalem. If he had lived he wud have changed history from what I heard of him.
I also saw Cleopatra that weekend making it a weekend of period movies for me. Cleopatra was a good infact great classic..the chemistry between liz taylor and richard burton was sizzling and timothy dalton also played the part of caesar really well.words fail me when i try to talk abt liz taylor's performance as the protagonist. this is a film worth watching just for her..She is a woman with all her failings and reminds one of Scarlett O'hara in gone with the wind. An irrepresible woman she wanted everything in life and died a sad woman.
another thing i noticed about the movie was that caesar was shown as a great king and general and a person capable of decision making and leading his men to victory while marc antony( the right hand man of caesar) was a capable general who was good at leading an army but not good at decision making. He had to be told by Cleopatra what should be done and not using his brains whether it was right or wrong. he later proved to be a simpleton and forced into a battle with Rome unwillingly.He gives a lot of food for thought for wannabe managers. Every person is capable of some tasks and does them well. however if he is good at one thing he might not be equally good at all things. An efficient person may not be an equally good at innovativeness. For a manager it is imperative to find out what are the things he is good at and try them only. Its not that he shouldnt try his hand at other skills but if it hurts the organisation then he should refrain. while delegating work to others he shud find out what the person is good at instead of assigning tasks in an arbit manner and thus decreasing efficiency. enuf funde for today:-)
I watched the matrix series again to try to interpret what the movie is trying to portray. Somehow watching the movies one feels that it is sending out a message about karma and the purpose of life and the need of "choice" which distinguishes us from robots.
well more on that later:-)
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
perceived lack of application skills
Today sitting on my luxurious chair in my office I ruminated over what I had discussed with a colleague at work place couple of days back regarding his lack of thinking poweress or more specifically his lackof application as I put it. Sometimes u look at others and u feel hey this person is so intelligent, so smart so much everything that I wud like to be and how come God forgot me so blatantly when he was pushing me down on mother earth and into india along with 50 other morons at the same minute as me. ( At that time we had 51 kids facing the brave new world every minute:-) ). The more I think about it the more I feel its a maliase affecting quite a few ppl including me.
India, where childhood consists of consistantly doing well in exams (that would give u sufficient lee way to do things u want to do) is not forgiving to seemingly ordinary ppl. Clearing board exams with 90 + percentage, then going to IIT for ur engineering degree, working in a top notch IT company( under extreme duress at times not only because of work but also coz of some un - understanding manager) why shud such a person feel that he has lack of application skills and that he is no good.. maybe its because no matter how much u achieve there is always some one doing better than u and when one is given a disposition of trying to do better than everybody, one easily falls prey to the despondency of being so inadequate to such a task.
A mom or a dad would be pleased with such a son ( worth his weight in gold.. with both IIT and IIM in the kitty. he is worth much in the marriage market :-)).. a Gal frnd might be adoring u for all that u are..( though that doesnt usually stop the fights for all the stupid reasons in world right from not having the right expression in the face at the right time to why our budget is not doing more to save money for females). It doesnt really help to see ur once thin flat tummy finally showing signs being well fed and protruding from all sides while the rest of the body remains constant..( reminds one of the skinny african guys who have a protruding tummy). This seems to be the bane for most guys working in the software industry.
So now here I am with a protruding tummy( I think the culprits are those butter laden naans I had with alarming regularityin the past few months ) and a weird sort of feeling that even though I am now among the best in the country, I havent ever done "exceedingly" well. Maybe its just a feeling that you get when u see someone doing better than you in some specific domains which reminds us of our failures in them though maybe overall u might be a better person.
In my colleague's case, the problem was pretty specific, "perceived lack of application skills".. there are things u are understood to know, understood to be applied by any tom, dick or harry, no one needs to tell u that but still sometimes u end up dismayed to find that u cannot apply it ur self unless somebody tells u how it can be done. If the problem assigned to u at work is something that has not been implemented before u feel all giddy at the thought of prospective timelines and feel like putting off every good thing in life until u finish that job. No, its not that u are not able to achieve ur target, its the feeling that it would have been done by others so easily then why did u have to make such an effort to do a similar thing. Is it just plain vanilla inferiority complex or is it the fact that nobody acknowledges the excellence that u obviously possess that helped u to perform a task that u perceived was easy but was actually pretty tough.
If that is the case then something is wrong in the system which doesnt adequately acknowledge all the ppl who are part of the team and who have in their own small or big way contributed to the success ( and hence leading to ppl feeling worthless or less confident about their skills) or maybe perception management is faulty by the person concerned. In this era of competition, one needs to let ppl know how good he is or how much work he is doing. However if he perceives that his original issue of application skills are pertinent and that now he is no longer the guy who can keep up to the scorching pace that others have set him up for then what can he do..should he look for a respite from job, take a break and try to analyse himself and come back strongly after recuperating or if he finds he is not interested in the job he is in, he shud try to take proper measures to get the job he likes and where his application skills, which seem so persistantly absent in his current job, are utilised in full measure.
Seems a simple solution but difficult to execute
India, where childhood consists of consistantly doing well in exams (that would give u sufficient lee way to do things u want to do) is not forgiving to seemingly ordinary ppl. Clearing board exams with 90 + percentage, then going to IIT for ur engineering degree, working in a top notch IT company( under extreme duress at times not only because of work but also coz of some un - understanding manager) why shud such a person feel that he has lack of application skills and that he is no good.. maybe its because no matter how much u achieve there is always some one doing better than u and when one is given a disposition of trying to do better than everybody, one easily falls prey to the despondency of being so inadequate to such a task.
A mom or a dad would be pleased with such a son ( worth his weight in gold.. with both IIT and IIM in the kitty. he is worth much in the marriage market :-)).. a Gal frnd might be adoring u for all that u are..( though that doesnt usually stop the fights for all the stupid reasons in world right from not having the right expression in the face at the right time to why our budget is not doing more to save money for females). It doesnt really help to see ur once thin flat tummy finally showing signs being well fed and protruding from all sides while the rest of the body remains constant..( reminds one of the skinny african guys who have a protruding tummy). This seems to be the bane for most guys working in the software industry.
So now here I am with a protruding tummy( I think the culprits are those butter laden naans I had with alarming regularityin the past few months ) and a weird sort of feeling that even though I am now among the best in the country, I havent ever done "exceedingly" well. Maybe its just a feeling that you get when u see someone doing better than you in some specific domains which reminds us of our failures in them though maybe overall u might be a better person.
In my colleague's case, the problem was pretty specific, "perceived lack of application skills".. there are things u are understood to know, understood to be applied by any tom, dick or harry, no one needs to tell u that but still sometimes u end up dismayed to find that u cannot apply it ur self unless somebody tells u how it can be done. If the problem assigned to u at work is something that has not been implemented before u feel all giddy at the thought of prospective timelines and feel like putting off every good thing in life until u finish that job. No, its not that u are not able to achieve ur target, its the feeling that it would have been done by others so easily then why did u have to make such an effort to do a similar thing. Is it just plain vanilla inferiority complex or is it the fact that nobody acknowledges the excellence that u obviously possess that helped u to perform a task that u perceived was easy but was actually pretty tough.
If that is the case then something is wrong in the system which doesnt adequately acknowledge all the ppl who are part of the team and who have in their own small or big way contributed to the success ( and hence leading to ppl feeling worthless or less confident about their skills) or maybe perception management is faulty by the person concerned. In this era of competition, one needs to let ppl know how good he is or how much work he is doing. However if he perceives that his original issue of application skills are pertinent and that now he is no longer the guy who can keep up to the scorching pace that others have set him up for then what can he do..should he look for a respite from job, take a break and try to analyse himself and come back strongly after recuperating or if he finds he is not interested in the job he is in, he shud try to take proper measures to get the job he likes and where his application skills, which seem so persistantly absent in his current job, are utilised in full measure.
Seems a simple solution but difficult to execute
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