An awesome birthday celebration .. thanks to all my friends for making it great

This was my last birthday at this place and boy..i enjoyed a lot......hope such days come again and again in everyone's life....

we were to have our last xam on my birthday but the celebrations were unaffected by this fact...as usual the cake and the ass kicking ceremony took place bang on the stroke of midnight and with the same zeal and enthusiasm as they usually do and i must admit this was the first time i was being hit so hard.....it was really paining.....the misery didn't end here.....my friendly roomie then slapped a pineapple cake right on my face and a friend of mine poured an entire bottle of beer over me.....(to all those who know me well, lemme clarify - this was the first and "probably" the last time i made contact with beer)......then i went to take a bath...but unfortunately there was no hot water....so after all this i had to bear an icy cold water rain in the chilling winters of gurgaon at 12:40 AM.....but all these moments are unforgetable...


then we had a small cake cutting ceremony at my room where the awesome chocolate cake was waiting for us (thanks my roomie for this)...we enjoyed the cake and then I had one more responsibility to be fulfilled .... taking a BFBV class at that point of time...it was 2:15 when i started to explain some concepts to a group of around 15 colleagues of mine and ended up at around 4:00 AM after which I went to sleep...though cash bargains were the pain in my ass but still I managed to sleep for a couple of hours.....

I took the exam and came back by 1:00 PM, had some work and finished it by 5:00 PM and then went on to play tennis....and then went out to eat some chat pakodi with my friends....we then sat down to play cards, and played till 3:30 AM in the morning the next day .... and at this point of time we decidced to depart for the drive thru McD near manesar....

I decided to drive the Ford Fiesta at 4:00 in the morning on the Guraon Jaipur Expressway and god...i enjoyed it....we came back by 5:30 and i had a session to attend at 7:30AM after which i thot i will leave for jaipur.....so i thot y not grab a little nap before the session....so i slept and when i woke up....gosh it was 9:40AM.....but i don't regret missing the session bcoz of the way we spent the last night,......

Tale of First Victory @ RANBHOOMI.........

its been a long time since i m planning to pen down my thoughts and write in this space, and the term has ended today. it wasn't that there was any dearth of issues, it was just the lethargic attitude which avoided me to do this....well more about it later....lets first come down to a more interesting issue at hand....our first match at Ranbhoomi, the cricket tournament at MDI
the team was named as Fuss Patakha and mind you it was in no sense a "Fuss" team. we started the victory paeans as soon as we won the toss and our explosive openers went on to bat....woww what an opening partnership that was...they provided the right platform for the forthcoming batsmen to come in and score runs freely....some exquisite sixes, elegant fours and calm singles can define the opening stand...but once the openers fell, it looked as if runs have started drying up and wickets fell quickly as well. but then the tail enders did their job and we went on to make a competitive total of 130 in 12 overs.
then came the other team...our bowling looked formidable in front of their batsmen and the way they started.....OMG....the first ball went to a SIX and that too on a swicth shot...the batsmen were playing calmly dealing only in sixes for the first 3 overs and then suddenly the turning point came....a run out and an awesome catch at the boundary...that set the sail of the victory for us and we won comfortably at the end....but when the openers were batting it looked that nothing was going right for us.....lots of meetings in between and bowling options to consider and field changes but all in vain....but all's well that ends well......
i was supposed to play the role of sheet anchor but unfortunately i wasn't able to match the general expectation level...they were thinking of me as dravid who will easily deal in singles but i thought i can change my game and play some shots.....but against my phisique and natural game i failed miserably and scored a boundary and 2 or 3 singles but wasted a lot of deliveries.....but then i decided to fulfill whatever was left in batting in my wicketkeeping and i successfully implemented it.......finally that was a comprehensive victory over "Gummatilakdigumma" the team of the southies....and we are all set to face the "Pandu aur 11 mulkon ki police"

Commonwealth games - Are We READY???

Delhi is hosting the commonwealth games 2010 and its almost final to the date. But have the preparations been up to date. Couple of days back I went through a poll in a leading daily asking the readers whether India can successfully host the event, and majority said no (the exact percentage saying no was somewhere near 60%). Are they pessimists or they are not patriotic or they don't want India to host the event??? I guess nothing among them is true.

Lets assume India can successfully host the event. What will happen after that???

Agreed that this will be a great opportunity for the tourism industry to flourish and expose the country to many new people. But the aftermaths are much more worse than the advantages. Lets get to them one by one.

A lot of money is spent on infrastructure. Its good that lots of underpasses, flyovers and metro routes are constructed for smooth transportation. But along with them as many as 7 new Air Traffic Control towers are proposed. Also a lot of companies are sensing an opportunity and have planned to raise world class hotels to project the brand India in front of GUESTS. But what will happen after the games. Who will use these world class facilities???

The current occupancy levels in the hotels is much below what is seen in many tourist countries of the world and with more hotels coming up, it will plummet. Also the maintenance cost incurred afterwards will be much higher than the revenue they will earn.

These events are attracting a lot of energy. Delhi is already short of power and water and these events demand hell lot of both of these precious gems. Are the people of Delhi ready to sacrifice because definitely there will be shortage, if not now then after the event.

Security of the guests is an issue. I guess this is the biggest one. With increasing terrorist attacks in the country, this is a great opportunity for the terrorists to give the country a huge blow. If such a thing happens, this will have a great impact on the relationships with other nations.

In the corner of my mind, there was this cultural issue related with the habit of foreigners. They drink a lot and during the events we will clearly see many of them drinking on roads in public. What impact that will have on our children???

There may be many more such pathetic affects which have been buried under the ecstasy of holding the event and which have been overlooked but the aftermaths have to be faced by us....
So are we READY........

What the hell Jinnah has to do with our country now???

How does it matter that Jinnah was a secular leader or not??? How does it affect our daily lives??? The person concerned is resting and let him rest in peace. If there are books on him, they are the personal opinions of the book writers and they have the right to pen down their opinions. And if they don’t, then the freedom of speech is just a point in the constitution which looks good only on reading but its implementation....
So why such a hue and cry on the thoughts of Mr. Jaswant Singh to the extent that even his book has been banned. If he feels that Jinnah was a good man than what’s the harm in that. BJP has a history of producing controversial leaders. Be it Uma Bharti or Varun Gandhi or Lal Krishna Advani or Arun Shourie or Jaswant Singh. So what’s up with these high class leaders of BJP. They are critically analysing a historic character (which is of no use), then they go on to publish a book containing this analysis, then they fight internally to ban the book and then the party dismisses these leaders which have been there for 30 long years. What’s happening to our democracy??? Or is it just a ploy by the BJP leaders to change their image from the Hindu pro party to a more secular one. If this is the case then they are seriously troubling their interests with the RSS.
I am not against BJP or Congress for that matter. I just want to see these parties as strong as they can be so that Indian voters have two healthy alternatives to chose from. However after the elections, BJP chose the path of slow death or the path of suicide to be very precise, which is not only harmful for the party but for the entire nation. Because if the voters don’t have any other alternative to vote for, then it will become a sort of monopoly for the single party that remains i.e. Congress.
While history is just to study and be informed about and not to be worried about, the most important concern should be the present and the future. Are we running out of issues that we have to discuss those issues which have no relevance at all in the country’s growth? At the time when the entire world is thinking about growth our honourable leaders are busy extracting the dead bodies out of the coffin. Why don’t they debate the trivial issues of poverty, employment, economic growth, infrastructure, education with the same intensity as they are debating the non sense issue of Jinnah?

My friend needs yet another loan!!!

My friend needs an advice. Actually he has taken a lot of loan and there are lots of members in his family. His income is not sufficient to run the family expenses and hence he has to take loans. Even to repay his installments, he has to take fresh loans. The principal and interest are both increasing and he his taking fresh loans to repay the earlier ones. This is a vicious circle my friend is in.

You must be guessing who this friend of mine can be. He is known to everyone of us. Yes, it is the GOVERNMENT of India.

This union budget clearly shows how much GoI cares about the members of its family. But is the loan money meant to be distributed like this. The revenue as per the budget is 600 thousand crores and we have spent much much more than this and for this the Govt. needs to take a fresh loan of 400 thousand crore which is almost 3 times what was in 2004.

Now lets see that where the money is spent. More than 75% of the expenses are dedicated to defense and subsidies, and the daily expenses of the functioning of the GoI. After all these, whatever little is left goes to the so called investment in development for which there is always a chaos, and which in the end is rendered unproductive.

Our defense expenses have grown by almost 50% in the last 5 years and is around 140 thousand crore which is 15 times more than the education budget. Why are we comparing ourselves to USA when it comes to the defense budget. Isn't it better to maintain good relations with our neighbours and hence drastically reduce this defense expense. Isn't it better to provide employment to people through different productive schemes rather than distributing rice and wheat free of cost as subsidies.

The govt. should quit the areas where it is not needed and hence try to reduce the expenses. It is taking loans and doing unwanted stuff as if it was its last day and it can take any amount of loan without even caring for repayment. If the situation continues to be like this, then the day is not far when the burden of principal and interest will increase so many folds that the government has to reduce the development rate and the inflation will increase to an extent that it will become very difficult for people like us to survive.

Was that really a MISTAKE???

It rained the entire day today and i enjoyed a lot....spent almost 1.5 hours in the downpour with someone "SPECIAL"...but this is not the point which i wanted to highlight in this post...

It was yesterday...my Brand Management exam...that i did something in the initial hour of the paper which i now think i shouldn't have done, since it is not my cup of tea...generally i just go n give the exam and come back without doing much of "it".

The paper began at 10:15 and at around 11:10 or so, i did something which made me the center of attraction in the class. What I did was not an act which could have been ignored by the class and hence that made me feel a little regretful.

At around 11:10, in just less than an hour after the start of the exam, I, in my complete senses,.....wait for it........asked for an extra sheet from the invigilator....The entire class started looking at me as if i did something illegal....though this was not expected out of me but...and then the class started to honor me by bench tapping. I just got up slightly from my seat and waived my hand in order to thank the class.

But now I think that I should have got up and should have bowed right in front of the entire class...but never mind this act of mine made a "faffer" rethink of his capabilities....but with full respect i won't accept that crown since it belongs to that person only.....

Rahul Gandhi + Youth + Gareeb Bharatiya = Congress victory

While the results of Indian Premier League are still awaited, results of Indian Political League are out and are quite welcoming. Congress has clearly won the elections and gained a thumping majority. The victory can be devoted to UP, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and many more such states all over India where BJP and other local parties suffered setbacks. These elections have given many positives to the Indian politics.

The first and the foremost is the destruction of “Red Fort” of West Bengal, formed by the Left front. After so many years of their stern traditional sticky control over west, the Mamata Bannerjee brigade has destroyed the Jyoti Basu army and has created history.

Then comes UP. They had only 9 seats out of 80 in the last Lok Sabha which has seen a sharp increase this year to 21. The major losers were SP and BSP. So the dreams of Mulayam and Mayawati have been thrashed and the primary reason is Rahul Gandhi. It was his industrious efforts which led Congress to have its feet in UP after many years.

Bihar was another state which suffered the aberration. The balloon named Lalu Yadav deflated and his party got only 3 seats with himself defeated from one place. Even Paswan and his party suffered badly as well. We can expect something good out of this sweep out.

Even Shiv Sena in Maharashtra was way below in its performance and so were many local parties.

So can we conclude that the verdict of the Indian voter is changing!!! Is he now consciously giving his precious vote to the national parties only??? Is he using his judgement to wipe out inefficient people from the politics??? Is Indian politics on the verge of turnaround???

Well these questions can be better answered in the next elections only and that will be 5 years from now and this is almost certain. UPA will be making a government in which there will be no place for Left, Lalu or Paswan. But still they have given a call to Lalu as of now, the hazy picture will become more clearer in days to come.

But one thing is sure, these people will now have very less bargaining power and very less say in the govt working and hence the govt can impose the decisions which it wants to, more freely and without the fear of stepping down from power (I hope we remember what Left did during the Nuke Deal).

Stability, improved economy and a better politics is what we expect now from this government. Lets wait n watch what this govt. has in store for us!!!

But there are some questions which rose after the elections and are still unanswered. The BJP PM Candidate, who was termed as PM in waiting has refused to become the Opposition leader in Lok Sabha. So who will take his place??? What will be the future of LK Advani??? Who will be the next candidate from BJP??? Will it be Narendra Modi??? With Ajit Singh changing ends soon after the results, what is the loyalty of a member to his party??? Will Rahul Gandhi become a Cabinet minister??? 

My first VOTING Experience

Well...not a good time to start Voting!!! This was the first time I voted and the experience was seriously pathetic. I guess this is the thing which drives many youngsters away from politics and our country is still plagued by the old, not ready to leave politicians.

So, as a concerned citizen, I went to vote at 8:00 AM (trust me I don't even get up at 8 AM normally, not even during my exams). I was enthusiastic but there was something else waiting for me in the next 2 days of election "Mahaul". I saw the much hyped Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and guess what, I got a shock (not an electrical shock by touching the machine)...it was like an asteroid coming from Mars and striking me right on my head. There were a couple of EVMs connected in series containing names of 30 odd candidates. The shock was these candidates were contesting elections from my own city and I knew the names of only 2 of them...even the people sitting there knew 14 candidates at max and according to my research in newspaper thereafter, I found out that only 5 or 6 candidates tried to do some campaigning on a bigger scale..big enough to win elections.

So if people don't know the candidates then how can they vote for them and if they can't then whats the purpose of placing another machine and adding to the colossal some of money spent in the elections.

My misery doesn't ends here. Next day, I was in Dausa for some work and I saw the biggest rally of my life. "Rally" will be demeaning as it was a POWER SHOW by the supporters of Kirodi lal Meena..I don't know what they were trying to prove...but were extremely happy as if he (hon. Kirori ji) won the election. They helped the common man by blocking the roads for 2 hours and threatening people who came in their way. The police and special force was just standing as a spectator waiting for them to leave and play with the law and order for as much time they wanted. If the ministers and the police are just adding to our woes, then whats the point in Voting!!!

I coudn't exercise the Section 49-0...I VOTE NOBODY and it hurts now....may be if many people do that, election commission should understand the public sentiment that none of the candidate was good enough to cast a vote for. Lets hope that the awareness of this one helps eliminating the non-qualified candidates and the democracy finds out a way towards improved politics.

Contrast..Singapore v/s India

The facts presented below are completely personal and resemlence to any living or dead is intented...so that people may learn and can take this country to a place it deserves....So, I left Singapore yesterday through one of the largest, cleanest and beautiful airports of the world...."Changi Airport". It handles 3 to 4 times more passengers and cargo than IGI, but still its maintenance and security are second to none....inimitable..

Not that they have more people to manage these..but the people there contribute a lot to the Nation's success by helping the government in every venture...

Just taking a samll example, the road crossings...people there don't cross the roads till the crossing light meant for them doesn't turn green...they do not spoil the roads by spitting or throwing any litter neither do they have maculate busses or trains, MRTs as they call. They abide by rules and do not eat or throw anything in their busses or trains to keep then dirtless.

But here, you can't find a bus in which people are not smoking, or litter spattered everywhere.

They have some of the best cars as taxis to run on jelly like smooth roads. Cars like BMWs, Mercedes, Peugeots, Nissans, Toyotas, etc are used as taxis.

They use cycles a lot and this coupled with excessive usage of public transport is a primary reason that the country is green and clean....as against us, the ROYAL INDIANS who consider driving cycles or travelling in buses as demeaning our reputation...which repo are we talking of??? vis a vis our neighbour.....thats bullsh**t.....

Now something very peculiar about the people there. They do a lot of text while travelling. Their speed on their mobiles is unmatched. Very few people are found reading books or newspapers as aginst Americans or Europeans who read a lot while travelling. 

Now, I would not sound like my economics teacher..always cursing India..So a sigh of relief for the Indians vis a vis Singapore people....As far as studies are concerned, they are way behind us....they generally leave schools to find jobs in places like Pizza hut or Mcdonalds.....

But after all this..one thing is sure.....they are happy going, helpful and have managed to lift their country to a position which seems unmatchable by any standards like ours

Singapore Safari

So, I am half manager now....though I know nothing about managing things.....there was still time before my internship and so I decided to pay a short visit to my brother in Singapore....Its really nice to meet family members after a long time.....and so is the time to introduce my niece...Dhruvi or Jiya as we call her at home.....She's just 2 and is really sweeeeeeet....

After meeting her, I have found that if we really look at life, there is something very interesting going on........She is just 2 years old and is able to express her quite clearly....she can't speak lengthy sentences as we can do but still,...she just uses one word or a noun -- names or verbs -- but just one word and you can know what she wants to say.....but we, the so called adults, who have the ability to say whatever we want, sometimes find it very difficult to express ourselves......over the years we forget how to express in a simplistic manner and try to make everything soooo perplexing.....this 2 year old kid has made me understand this guileless thing of life....

                                                 

Coming back to Singapore, yesterday I went to see Raffles place and saw "Merlion"...wowww what a place to be......all the bigwigs - HSBC, Fullerton Hotel, May Bank, Bank of China, etc....we clicked a lots of photos over there and enjoyed a lot. While crossing Fullerton Hotel, we found it quite ravishing, so take a snap, we decided to enter the hotel from the roadside gate....A waiter stopped by and quite gullibly asked whether he can help us and with the same innocence I replied, we just wanted to take a snap. Ironically, he was very joyous to hear that, and he manifested us with places inside the hotel where we can take snaps.....quite friendly huhh....

One more thing before i end up this first episode of Singapore Safari, the traffic system is absolutely brilliant with MRT system and  apart from the fact that the city is immaculate and spotless.

OLD POLITICIANS......NEW POLITICS

From last few days, you must have noticed a hyperlink following you wherever you go (like a Hutch network) on a newspaper sites, or even on gmail. This hyperlink is a portal created by the BJP Prime Minister candidate Sri Lal Krisna Advani, www.lkadvani.in. This is a way to establish a connect with the youth and is on the same lines as of Barack Obama.

This website exhibits the benefits of voting to BJP, conditions prevailing in Assam, his own career and life. It also contains blogs to pour the bitterness against Congress, enemies of secularism and the nation as a whole. These days, on eve of women’s week the home page says “I salute the women of India and the world”—LK Advani.

This is quite clearly a great innovation from a person who is neither a marketer nor has done a MBA degree, but he is just a politician serving his country from past so many years. This is actually a counter attack against all the existing ways of campaigning by other political parties and a unique way to create a sustainable competitive advantage in this election.

He is actually doing things differently to attract the largest youth population in the world. He was seen in a gym lifting dumbles, clearly illustrating the fact that he wants to remain fit to serve the people of the country as against many politicians who are of the age of retirement (Advani is older than many of those).

Congress tried to gauge this youth by introducing many faces....obviously young ones and giving them tickets to contest elections against the old heroes. So to fight this experience v/s youth trade-off, they, especially Advani has found innovative and unconventional way of marketing BJP to the hearts of younger generation of India.

But they have to understand that it’s not just about reach. Though internet will be a great medium for penetration of his and his party’s thoughts; but message is more important than medium. They must understand that the youth wants to know about employment, social security, poverty, economic conditions, and foreign affairs and the one who will be able to provide this to them and satisfy them on these issues will be the one who will form the government.

Batsmen, Bowlers and Bullets

Indians are obsessed with Cricket, but after the terrorist attacks at Mumbai, Ahmadabad, Bangalore, and Jaipur, they are obsessed with terror. The recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore can be interpreted as a clash between two of the greatest passions of the subcontinent – Cricket and Religion. Will this attack act as the dead end for the improving Indo-Pak relationship, which became better after a hiatus of 18 years in 1978???

Now the main question is what will happen to Pakistan cricket??? Already countries like England, New Zealand and Australia have refused to play in Pakistan. Now, after this incident which exposed the abysmal security situation in Pakistan, no country will be willing to send their precious gems there, only to get shot or injured and increase the ever growing pie of their problems.

The thing is, it will not only affect cricket in Pakistan, rather it will affect the entire subcontinent as a whole. The question: “How safe is India then???” remains unanswered. Hence, the shrapnel wounded Sri Lankan players would give a sound reason to tell everyone that IPL and World Cup and other major tours to the subcontinent are in jeopardy. The officials of IPL almost confirmed that the “clash of titans” will take place definitely but at a later time. The reason for this procrastination of the event is two fold: a need to beef up security; and Elections, which are scheduled at the same time as IPL.

This will be a setback to the cricket fans back home. This may bring a sort of exile to the game being played here. The situation may become more or less same as it was in South Africa which faced isolation from world cricket, but the passion towards the game kept Cricket alive there and they came back strongly.

Ankhon mein sapney liye..ghar se hum chal to diye..

Prolixity is alien for the Indians. I would continue this legacy and will try to keep this short and crisp.

Well this is my story and experiences at my current place. At this place, we all fellow mates gathered because we chose hope over fear. Hope –hope of generating breakthrough ideas, hope of becoming successful CEOs some day. But looking at the present scenario, it looks that we will not be getting even a meagre amount out of this pie of hopes. We are now subjected to a greater fear, fear of not getting jobs, fear of a lifeless degree and this fear is haunting me. I joined this place to think like Ambani – “karlo duniya mutthi mein” and to do business like Tata – “Nano- the common man’s car”. But just like Nano, everything that I think I have to do is procrastinated due to one reason or the other.

The future greatly depends on what we do every day. Have a glance on that!!!

A day here begins generally at 9:30 AM and that too after snoozing the alarm for 3 to 4 times after which it becomes a compulsion to get up and get ready for the torture to follow (otherwise you will miss the breakfast which will force your mind to leave everything and focus on the fact that you missed it). The schedule begins at 10:15 AM and continues till 1:30 PM after which we all jump to take the food which even the animals refuse to eat (god forbids...no disregards for food...). During all these hours, we all give our fruitless efforts to control our sleeps. It’s again time to reach the psychic prison from which we get the freedom for the day at 5:30 PM after which the stomach says “Oh my dear!!! Please give me something edible and delicious to fulfil my hunger.” So we pay our daily visits to the canteen (I must admit, I have visited the canteen more than I ever visited a temple).

Back at our rooms now and time to start our ritual of playing cards....this is one thing we rarely miss. After lots of fights, cheatings, defeats and victories, it’s time for dinner and my stomach again says “Noooooooo” not again. But after analyzing the cash inventory and the balance sheet, my pocket says “Dude!!! Where else you can go??? Any smallest restaurant or better to say a “dhaba” empties your pocket to the tune of three times than what a good reputed restaurant of your home place can.” So no options for this poor soul but to have refreshment in the mess...So it is a hostile takeover of mental atrocities and physical ones...

“PrOmiSes” – some broken and rest unfulfilled

On the way from mess to my room, I try to strategise and plan what I have to do for the next day....some pre-reads, assignments, presentations, etc and try to manage time. This planning exercise is just like Edison’s 1000 failed experiments, all futile (though I hereby promise that I will not learn anything from my mistakes). I reach my room take the book in my hand and then again a dilemma....whether to sit on my chair or chose the easy route....bed. No prize money to be given in answering what I chose. I have just read 3 or 4 pages and guess what??? I find myself laying down completely on my bed in “shavasan” and then after I woke up after an hour and half, I regret that I should have chosen the thorny path.....the chair. It’s always about trade-offs. But then I try to console myself.....its still time and you can do it.

Then I start again and suddenly someone calls me and asks “Do you want to play cricket???” Now this is a lucrative offer....how can I refuse?? (Any resemblance with the Godfather dialogue is unintentional). So I promise myself that no matter what, I will just play for an hour and will come back by midnight. (God, I need to take the course on negotiation skills in the 2^nd year). Trying to make a strategic alliance between cricket and studies. And this never happens. I play till 1:30 AM and then go to the tea shop thinking this will evade the clouds of sleep and dreams at once and then I can study longer. But that tea costs me another 30 minutes looking at who’s coming with whom and talking about useless issues. I then decide to return back to my room above all forces and then again make a promise that I will not sleep before completing the next day’s readings or assignments....I know this is a grandiose plan and will never be fulfilled but still this consoles my heart to some extent. And finally I sleep by 2:30 AM again making a promise that I will study in the morning. Impossible!!!!

I manage to reach the prison in time and again a surprise is waiting for me - A surprise quizzz!!!! Ohh man....had I studied the previous day, I would have done well in the quizzz....and again a promise that I will study from next day onwards!!! But in vain....next day is a new day...new schedule....new ways to pass time.....new sports either cricket of football or tennis.....”ki farak penda hai”...but same old promises and same old results.....and same resolutions at the end of the day. This is a vicious circle of promises and will never end.