writers block

Life moves on….

Suddenly I realized that I have nothing better to do after one of the more boring weekends that I have had in recent times.

There is an office report that I need to prepare for tomorrow, like every day but let it be made tomorrow morning itself. So I am prepared to write and clear the writer’s block!!!

The next question to is to write about what?

Business gyaan, eCommerce, Life, people, friends…naaah…all too boring.

These days courtesy to the rising eCommerce in the country I have been able to revive my hobby of reading. Every alternate week I order two books after checking prices on websites like flipkart, infibeam, indiaplaza, indiatimes shopping. I was reading a lot about the way choices are made by people and some of the better books that I read included

1. Art of choosing by sheena Iyengar

2. Dan Ariley’s predictably irrational & upside of irrationality

3. Number of books by Malcolm Gladwell

After getting bored from this subject about the so called, “behavioral economics”, I moved to diversifying my reading interests. My last fortnight was spent on something that stumbled upon by chance, history of world and I found two innovative books on this area:

1. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky: This book uses salt as its hero and talks about how the history moved and salt acted as wheels to this movement. I found this perspective very western in nature. The writer ignored most of the perspective from Indian & Chinese civilization and I found it unacceptable that these two civilizations wouldn’t have used SALT.

2. A history of world in 6 glasses by Tom Standage: Another interesting take on the history, this time through beverages that have dominated different phases of development of civilization from beer to coke. This is a well written book which gives a well-rounded perspective & ensures that readers don’t get bored in the historical nuances only.

Another challenge that I now have is to identify the books that I would be reading in the next fortnight. I was thinking about Elizabeth kubler ross but found the books to be very expensive (1k+ range). So now I have settled The tell tale brain by V. S. Ramachandran, clearly my obsession with things which are driven by mind continues, that is why my diversification from behavioral economics is coming back full circle, but I am happy that I have moved one step behind behviour to the reason of behavior…our Dear Brain!!!

Courage under fire

‘Life’ is a word that keeps on coming back to my thought process and so does it seep through to whatever I intend to write.
Todays day is one of mixed emotions which are too complicated for me to describe in sentences, hence I will utilize this engineering capability of breaking the problem into elementary parts and help myself understand my current mental situation.
1. Today I gave cat again for the 4th time. Its almost 6 years since I have been preparing for cat. I don’t know what has been the constant source of my energy which has kept me going in search of those most coveted institutes of the country. I don’t know how I have done in the paper because I don’t have the courage to open the question booklet and check the answers that I have marked in the paper. This emotion can be termed as ‘fear mixed with hope’.
2. ISB results can be out any moment till the 20th. I have done well in the interview and the performance has been endorsed by a few as well. The emotion can be termed as ‘hope mixed with fear’.
I don’t know how to feel these and what to feel how to react…..simply screwed up inside my mind. Just praying overtime that my life gets a track now. Ohh plzzz….god I think you have had enough of tormenting, I may not be able to bear more…..plz….i don’t want to learn how to bear more of this…..plz plz plz…

Naukri impact on the dinner cost!!!

So what all does naukri change in an individual as well as an individual's life
Thats so unlike me of not beating round the bust and straight away going to the bust i.e. talking about the title!!!

But sometimes there are no round about ways...Truth has to be accepted:

• Well since you start earning money you start spending it...Nothing unusual and different per say but it makes a huge difference. The cost of a dinner, when i was in IIT in first year used to be Rs 30/- it increased to 50-65 in second and third and went up to 90-100 by the time i passed out of the place. Was inflation the reason for this change. I don't think so. I still remember opting for cheaper options in a dinner and not opting for a post dinner basundi(Marathi version of rabri which is slightly more dilute) at times because saving was of paramount importance to me. But as times passed i realized that i don't end up saving much and end up screwing my dinner as well, because the payments are always divided equally and i anyways used to eat less and still eat less.
  
• After formally starting naukri, all parameters for a normal dinner are already too far above my normal range. Now a simple desert or a starter or a mocktail can cost you as much as your dinner(Rs 150/-). Since i cant justify such a spending, i have more or less stopped thinking about this. But the point is that now a dinner of mine can cost anything from 150 to 300 bucks. So basically in a short span of 5 years i am spending 10 times on the same dinner.
• But is the product 10 times superior or the satisfaction levels are more is a debate that i can't really find answers to.
  
  
• Another question that creeps into my mind is that am i justified in this spending?? The answer is a roundabout one. Now the circle of friends that i have come from a class that used to be a class or two above mine. Hence its perfectly normal and logical for them to spend this kind of a money of food. But since there is this sudden jump in my class, in order to be classy i have to bear this cost which appears unusually high to me. So this expense is not only a dinner expense.
• Its a cost of being part of a circle and class which i was not a part of earlier.
• But again there is a data type mismatch in terms of my family still being a part of the same old class and not rising to the level that i am at. And at current levels of income i cant really afford to pull all of them together to this place where i seem to have reached.

So this turns out to be an ethical dilemma as well. So even if it is ethically wrong i dont have a way out but to continue commiting this crime and hope for a raise so that all of us reach the same level.

Mixed colours of Holi, Uttaranchal and Indian men

So I am writing/typing again. And this time I have picked up too vast an area to complicate the matters. But its okay I have a lot more time at my disposal than my mind can bear to do this creative work. The reason is that I consider myself cretively challenged since I prepared for IIT- JEE for the two longest years of myself, and my view is that most of the people who do that, end up loosing this side of their brain.

Fine more than enough for the highly unrelated prologue to the post. Now getting back to the Title.

Today is holi.

So Happy Holi to me and all those who may end up reading up till here in this post, whenever they do.

How am I celebrating my holi ? Well…. Celebrating festivals has become a rather uncomfortable thing for me. I don’t know how one enjoys the festivals.

At one end I can see my mom and dad, not being able to enjoy them because of absence of both their sons (my brother is at IIT madras and I am roaming around the country for this management training).

Last diwali I was with my friends in bangalore. But now which friends do I want to be with also becomes a case study for me. For the last 8-9 months my friends circle has totally changed from what is so called nerdy, gande- sande(nahin nahane wale), life mein peace types, cracku, maggu, nabadu, gamers, lukkhe iitians to these so called new age polished, sophisticated, responsible MBA’s.

The problem is that with this new set of people I have to on a cautious note. I cant let go of myself because I still don’t understand them as well as I used to understand my earlier set of friends. The problems that I also have to face include that I always keep on comparing this set to my earlier set. Although I totally understand that this set has treversed a different course to reach where it is now. But the problem is that I have traversed a totally different path and I have also ended up at the same point. So my learnings, ways of living, interpretations and responses, outburst, adaptations, dealings are upside down for the same given situation.

I still don’t know what will provoke them, what is fun, what is letting go for them. What could be nothing at all for me could hurt them so much that is unimaginable for me. So I am still getting used to or adopting these classier ways to survive in this new age world.

But the journey hasn’t been bad. I have found teachers, I have found friends also. And probably time will make me a better individual with this socioprofessional learning which probably at least a few iitian needs. It’s just that I have had to get a crash course rather than a full course.

So today I am celbrating holi with no one but this lappy and TV in front with all these dilemmas in my mind.

Now uttaranchal.

Yes I came back from rudrapur yesterday only. And that is a place which I would call a mini Bangalore. Rudrapur comes under area where government has given excise and income tax benefits to set up manufacturing industries. And that seems to have worked. Rudrapur rocks today. You wouldn’t have heard of that place 5 years ago but today almost all the major Indian companies including the bajaj’s, Honda, Tata’s, Parles, Britannia, Nestle and a lot many more have set up plants. This has brought a lot of jobs and investment to the place. Now you get a 2 bhk for approximatedly 6000 bucks in that small village which doesn’t even have a good theatre to boast. I will compare that to Kota which also saw a dramatic rise in the rents because of students pouring in from all across north India to prepare for IIT JEE. And Bangalore where software professionals from all across the country poured in to make their lives successful? In kota you get a lavish 2 bhk for Rs 4000/ and in Bangalore you get a 2 bhk for 12,000/-.

This is the kind of sky rocketing which can be attributed to the Indian success story and the rapid progress we have seen over last few years.

And now Indian men

Yes actually this was the trigger to come up with this post after so long.

I was reading this article in HT which was saying that Indian men don’t want accept that they belong to some one. Rather they expect the women to belong to them. In effect, “Boy friends not accepting about them, having girl friends publicly”. Now this is part is not a response to that article. Rather that article triggered this post.

Are Indian men really like that?

Well probably, given the culturally conservative environment we have many men wont be ready to open up to the society until it gets moulded into the bond of marriage. This could be seen in two totally different perspectives.

· It gives the men the freedom to break up, without creating a social hoopla out of the thing, because normally women are the ones who get emotional about things and it becomes difficult for them to carry things forward. Given the fluid situation things make and break easily. There is no concept of soul mate at an initial stage.

· It also allows the men freedom to flirt with other girls as the article was suggesting. As man I don’t see anything wrong in that. But I think that would be really unfair. And this brings us to individual trust issues in the relationships. Which need to be sorted out.

So this ends a rather complicated, long awaited post.

Enjoy Life mein peace.

And I hope that such complications don’t arise in life of everyone.

ak

Negativity of thought

What does the title mean?

You hear a lot about being positive when you prepare for interviews. At least that was the first time I heard about being positive whenever you answer a question. And the funny thing is that you don’t find mention of all this kind of talk after you enter the job.

SO if you don’t find the mention of all these things in the job and given the fact that I am in a job then why the heck am I talking about it. Well because some one else spoke to me about being negative in thought.

So what does being negative mean in principle. In my perception it could mean
Not being hopeful about future
Not painting a rosy picture for the times to come
Thinking more about the failure rather than success.
I can’t think of anything else in being negative than these. So since I have been branded as negative I would take that as premise of the forthcoming discussion. I would want to give the advantages of being negative:
You know what your limitations are.
You are not overestimating your potential.
If you are an immaculate planner you are highly likely to achieve your goals since you have been negative in thoughts and hence your goals can’t be too far fetched for you to expect the luck being on your side.
Now what are the disadvantages of possessing negative thoughts?
Well, you are limiting yourself; hence you can’t be a groundbreaking achiever.
It is highly likely that you underestimate your potential and hence you don’t achieve what you actually capable of.
Since thinking negative is highly unfashionable or non HEP as they put it, you are always likely to fall in the wrong side of a debate where on one side you are trying to defend yourself logically (something I credit myself with) like a villain in any action movie and on the other side are the heroes. So this is a major problem that you are going to encounter time and again. The result of this could be that you end up making a lot of enemies or you end up loosing a lot of friends.
I also credit myself with being less emotional then other people around myself and hence I had resolved to keep this negativity of thought to myself and not to make it public. But today it came out in a highly indirect form in front of a very good friend of mine. I am really scared that I end up hurting the person although I don’t have any such intention, but as I have already pointed out that it is an obvious result of being on the negative side of thoughts. So how do I help myself in this situation??
The only answer I have right now is to become a better analyst of implications of what I say to other people. When I do that I will be able to save my friendships from being adversely impacted by my thoughts and what I am?
But don’t they say that your friends should accept as what you are and you shouldn’t change to make friends???
I can’t logically resolve this fallacy.
Life mein peace

problem of a mall

Wishing all those who happen to read this blog a very happy new year and merry Christmas.

I had envisaged that I would be forced to blog a lot this weekend, but 2/3^rd of the weekend passed without me writing a single line. Reason being, I had blast with a friend of mine. The start of the weekend was early, although I should not be using start of the weekend because life these days is more or less a weekend only.

So what about the weekend!!!

Well it was emotionally straining, because I deviated from logic. But as usual effort on war footing has started to brutally murder emotion and get back to logical Mr. Kumar. Efforts have started to bear fruits also.

So today I was in this mall called the ‘gopalan mall’. A rather different‘ish’ name to select for a mall, given that the names of other malls in the city are Bangalore central, Forum and Garuda.

Now the first impression that you have after looking at the mall is of ‘just like any other’. But on entering it we found that it was still under construction but open. Fine ‘fair enough’. So what about it?

Well when my friend just read the name of the mall, his impression was, “Yaar yahan par to kannad logon ke use kaa saamaan milta hoga”. I found that this impression was incorrect with the mall featuring most of the usually available brands having their factory outlets.

Another thing that couldn’t go unnoticed from my eyes was the sizable presence of a specific religious community say ‘A’.

From this observation I made a sweeping suggestion that, attracting that community would be crucial to the success of the mall. With that suggestion arose a very important question, “What all products can be kept in a mall to attract a specific religious community A?”

My friend snapped back, “None of the bigger brands make community specific products”. If as the owner of the mall I want to keep those people interested or more than interested i.e. enthusiastic about my mall or want to get a preference in the minds of those people….What should I do?

To put it into specific perspective, Britannia Good day Pista badam sells well in areas resided by A because of its colour. Now that is a simple solution to ensure that Pista Badam has ample supplies in the place. That automatically leads to the solution that products being liked by A like clothes of specific texture and colour also are ensure good visibility and supplies.

But can we get some specific products that aren’t available at other malls in my mall. I haven’t been able to come up with any. Help me out!!!

ak

what you cant write

Long time no see!!!

Most of the people who used to blog regularly during college days are forced to say that in each of their new blogs. But this is probably the last time I am saying that, not because I am going back to college but I would want it to be a generic sentence for all my blogs, untill and unless I am fortunate enough to go back to college.

After the previous blog life has been hep. (Happening way of writing happening, at least some MBA’s and so called happening people think so.)

Now about the blog, “The realization that strikes me is that you can’t always divulge everything in a blog at a given point of time.” In college I used to think that I would be able to write freely about the way I feel about things when I become a free man.[But the college already saved its ass by retaining authority to snatch away my degree at any point of time for next 25 years]. And anyways now all those things have lost relevance and most obviously to the people who know my forgetful and forgiving nature, “I have forgotten most of them.”

Similar things hold true for my current situation also. This blog is not supposed to be mine but of an anoniitian. Still there are some people who suspect that this is mine…[Bahut jyada complication ho gaya hai…if you don’t understand…don’t try to..exert yourself]

Anyways let me come to the point…

What all has happened over this long gap !!!

Well now I am going to become a Mumbai kar. My dad has been transferred to Bombay ‘the city of dreams’ where I spent 4 best years of my life. But probably they were the best because I was not bound by the presence of inspecting eyes of my family.

But this is the basic problem of a transferable job. Now I don’t have a permanent address for god’s sake. Abhi job to bilkul banajaron kee zindagi kee tarah chal raha hai aur agar ghar kaa bhi pata thikana naa ho to koi kya kare.

There is another very important thing which is happening and which is supposed to be very important, but as I have already mentioned that you cant always write your heart out.

The third thing is that loneliness is going to strike me bitterly and very hard by the start of this weekend because all other friends of mine are going to be put ‘on the job’ training and I will still carry that (disgusting, stinking, hopeless, senseless, obnoxious, abhor able….i am falling short of adjectives...) batch of being trainee for some more time which I desperately but unsuccessfully tried to get shortened.

Hence there are a lot of blogs in the offing which will probably be about my experience over the last few months across various states of country and one of the better known companies in the country.

Fourth thing is even more difficult to put, but I would try and use English, Hindi and Hinglish languages as my support system to put in whatever way I can the situation I am facing. So try and read between the lines and be as interpretational as possible because the distance between the language and reality are going to be as long as horizon and me.

With time passing by I came to know that I need to learn a lot of things from the perspective of being a mature social being. I have over a period of time learnt to use my past as a punching bag whenever I felt that I was lagging in the most fashionable and modern aspects of college life. But then I am a logical man, so a feeling of guilt started settling inside me for doing such a crime which I continue to do even now. Now the problem at hand is that situations reverse with individuals changed and me being treated with my own medicine. Difficult …affirmative…..Very difficult ….A big yes…..But every one has to live by this sword called natural justice. But if you are punished and behave well during your sentence, then even the government releases you early based on good conduct. I am also hoping for the same. But the positive that comes out this all mumbo jumbo that I have written is that I get to learn a lot from the social perspective, may be with a lot of pain,

Par “Dard mein bhi kuch baat hai”

Aur seekna to dard se bhi utna hee hai jitna khushi se.

life