tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20645224282142231292024-02-07T09:15:20.426+05:30Thoughts in TrafficThis blog will give you my take on the Buzz around you.Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-42933517498084539182015-11-19T19:18:00.001+05:302015-11-19T19:28:42.400+05:30Being "Social" Media - Don't Filter your Impact!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I firmly believe that each one of us live off 3 fundamental urges of: <i>Need for Recognition</i>, <i>Narcissism</i> and <i>Empathy</i>! Though the degrees varies from person to person.<br />
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Facebook (referred to as FB intermittently in this post) as a company probably relies on these / feeds off it, to ensure it's existence! As a marketer I'd give them a hats off for tapping into this so successfully and sustain-ably growing from strength to strength. They seem to have found the right mix of these to ensure that the majority of us, feel FB is a part of our life now. Be it Sharing Photos, Checking in to let your world know where / with whom you are, Venting anger, Voicing public opinions, Keeping in touch and Umpteen other smaller (yet important) emotions that appeal to us at a given point in time!<br />
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They sure do deserve Kudos for their success when you look at it:<br />
- As a Business, <br />
- As a platform to improve communication<br />
- As another step in bringing the world closer<br />
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but like every entity, FB has it's own pitfalls! One of them, which is glaring to me as a person is what Facebook currently calls 'Profile Filter'. They ride on the current wave of public opinion and the fact that people want to show their support (get on the right side of their misguided conscience) and let them apply a filter and feel they've done their bit!<br />
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My 2 cents on this (I've heard this phrase way too often in the last few months to not use it in at least 1 post (:) -<br />
1) Applying a Profile Filter is nothing more than one wanting to garner acceptance socially! Yes, as a person you're only feeding your 'Need for Recognition' with this<br />
2) FB as a company, could've done just a little more and ended up being exponentially more effective!<br />
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I agree for campaigns like Digital India, they couldn't have done too much more to help (not that I vouch for a profile filter being used here, but that's for the business minds of FB to decide). But when it comes to issues like the Nepal Earthquake or the current Refugee Crisis, FB could've done more than just turn a blind eye!!<br />
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<b>How?</b><br />
They could've given people a simpler way to contribute (monetarily) and in return give the user an option of a profile filter. They could've made it both easy (one click) and transparent to ensure the actual cause benefits from this support! That is like a badge showing you've done the least you could and you're urging (spreading awareness) others to follow suit.<br />
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Eg:<br />
During the Nepal Earthquake, they could've had a simple click to contribute to the rebuilding. Once a person contributes (however small), he gets to apply a Profile Filter.<br />
Similarly for say the current Refugee Crisis, click to contribute to their interim welfare!<br />
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This feature however small, would've actually benefited millions (not to mention the immense positive business impact for Facebook). This would've tapped into our third fundamental urge of Empathy, and left a deeper / lasting impact on all of us.<br />
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Then in my opinion, Facebook would really be "<i><u><b>social</b></u></i>" media! (pun intended)</div>
Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-59027306007844639332015-11-02T01:14:00.001+05:302015-11-02T15:03:27.155+05:30An Indian Citizens Voice - The 'New Category' of people!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Responsibility is something we're ingrained with right from childhood. If you're the older sibling you're even told a million times if not more, that "your younger ones are watching you, so please conduct yourself properly!". As we grow (and become so-called 'more mature'), we learn to handle this weight of responsibility better! We learn to conduct ourselves with dignity, we become more tolerant, we learn to respect everyone for what they are and most importantly we learn how NOT to be judgemental!</div>
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However, lately what I've noticed with this 'New Category' of people baffles me! It makes me wonder if rules are different for this 'New Category'? Whether they grew up in the same society as me? Whether they're another kind of species? Sometimes I even assume that this 'New Category' of people are the sole reason for the existence words like dimwit, blinking idiot and a cartload more of all the junk you can attribute to them.</div>
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This 'New Category' of people unfortunately for us have their voices heard every where and this ends up being detrimental to all of us! I've encountered them lately in multiple folds:</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">One genius who belonged to this group, blamed women for rapes and asked them to dress up "decently", instead of asking the imbeciles who rape to keep it in their pants!</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Another one instigated the lynching of a man just because he heard a rumour (which of course ended up being false). What's worse? The rumour wasn't about this man being a terrorist OR raping someone OR being a murderer, rather it was about him having beef (again, even if he indeed had Beef, I don't see how it's anyones' bloody damn' business to have an issue with that? Moreover, if a cow is holy to you and you don't want to eat Beef, then don't - simple as that! How on earth can you force others not too? What if plants are holy to someone, will you stop eating vegetables?)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">It goes worse when another few in this category resulted in our nations relationship with the harmless, always cordial and a wall of sorts (with China) country Nepal going to the dumps!! But again, I was expecting too much, right?? As it's this same set of individuals who failed to keep a good working relationship with a group of students (FTII). So I guess I'll safely assume Nepal was too much to handle for them?</li>
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To a bunch, these are just politically motivated instances / bad PR. But, let's all for a second, forget the political landscape and just consider only these specific individuals and their actions. Look beyond the clutter (with no prejudice) and you'll also notice how more than anything this 'New Category' of people are making an impossible future for us! Majority of us (including me) generalise, so you can only imagine what the rest of the world is doing? For them these individual incidents define our country.</div>
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I've lately been fortunate to be able to travel across the globe (predominantly for business). I met this enterprising (old only by age, young at heart, and sharp as a knife with business) Australian Investor at the beginning of this year, and again bumped into him last month!</div>
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If I'm to sum-up my conversations with him between both our meetings, then it would go from:</div>
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"India's new leadership seems to be promising and flamboyant. I guess it'll be very good for your country" (trust me, when you hear this from an outsider it'll make you beam with pride)</div>
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"The safety concerns is making me re-evaluate my investments in India!" (and here's where you feel let down)</div>
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As an Indian, all I can hope is that common sense somehow transcends to this 'New Category' of people! They've been fortunate to be so eminent, followed and looked to as leaders (in their own right), so I think it's time they behave responsibly and do justice to this unique opportunity they have. It is a cross road of sorts, a strategic inflection point! They now have reached a point where they'll leave an indelible mark on our country.</div>
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Whether that's for good (every Indian citizen sincerely hopes for this) OR bad is something only time will tell?</div>
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Note: I'm writing this post as a citizen of this country and NOT vouching for OR pointing fingers with any political agenda, whatsoever! It's never been my intentional to hurt anyones' sentiment OR belief. This post is just calling for every citizen to stop thinking politically for a moment and think about it as your future and that of generations to follow!</div>
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Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-50608805491124453322014-01-24T21:48:00.000+05:302014-01-24T22:07:33.460+05:30Idiosyncrasies of 2014: Politics & Football in the same sentence!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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2014 has gotten off to a rather eventful beginning, good or bad there's been something that's called for a crazy reaction in varied aspects.</div>
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<i><b>The Political Drama (an Indian Feature Film) </b></i></div>
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All the Drama in 2014 was (is/going to be) courtesy one person, whom Uddhav Thackeray called an 'Item Girl', the same man who wasn't sure of his JD before taking up a Job (as Delhi CM) and now is behaving like a Finance Graduate (assumed he'll be an Investment Banker) and is being asked to sell Insurance, the one and only Arvind Kejriwal, aka AK!</div>
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This reminds me of my Business Strategy class, where a market which currently follows an Oligopoly, the barriers for entry are very high (pardon me for only taking excerpts and not actuals), so it isn't ideal to enter this market. Now drawing parallels to India Politics, Congress & BJP are the two largest parties with umpteen other regional parties helping each of them by forming a coalition. When AK had to enter politics, he either had to take the Donkey's Route of starting with one of these parties and then going up the ladder to eventually be in a position to impose his ideas on them OR think out of the box. That was the exact moment when he suddenly noticed himself on crossroads of Anna Hazare (and his routine hunger strikes) & the power of social media. He used this opportune moment to propel himself as a Third Front (an option which India's always going to 'soon' have for the last 69 years).</div>
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I don't have an issue with any of that, as that's him thinking out of the box. But where I disagree is:</div>
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1) Going on a Strike, being the Chief Minister (CM) of Delhi</div>
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2) Getting Delhi to a literal standstill and trying to strike another chord by calling himself an Anarchist</div>
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3) Half the social media population trying first doing the 'cool/in' thing by voicing their support for his party AAP, only to later start wondering what went wrong?</div>
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4) Another bunch who call this a 'Revolution'. I'm guessing the word revolution is preferred as it isn't yet Mainstream (pun intended)</div>
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5) Trying to undermine the blunder of the racist & sexist remark by a couple of the party members</div>
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6) Lastly, a few ppl proclaiming that "at least he's doing something and not sitting in an office like the other politicians". I mean seriously, that is his 'freaking job' to sit in an office and govern Delhi (statement credit: <a href="http://meammona.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Swathi</a>)!</div>
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<i><b>The Football Hullabaloo </b></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcttSDqP1w61DJjuivfJsU02Y9b2t7HcXrZz9L39eARGzMQOfxfcSdo2B1523kjJ3F1hl81NmhnQ2VMBUI3neO2G5UuR08AJh4ROO8b-yviHDlUhZwLg7BRg2DlaOFB9rFNc3eje8l2A/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Juan Mata - Chelsea FC - CFC - MUFC - Miss you Mata - Jai Mata Di" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdcttSDqP1w61DJjuivfJsU02Y9b2t7HcXrZz9L39eARGzMQOfxfcSdo2B1523kjJ3F1hl81NmhnQ2VMBUI3neO2G5UuR08AJh4ROO8b-yviHDlUhZwLg7BRg2DlaOFB9rFNc3eje8l2A/s1600/images.jpeg" height="133" title="Juan Mata - Chelsea FC - CFC - MUFC - Miss you Mata - Jai Mata Di" width="200" /></a>It's obvious that being an avid football follower (and a True Blue, Chelsea fan for all of 14 years) this month usually is eventful for the January transfer window. Eventful yes, but this time around it was something to be sad about (as a Chelsea Fan). A player who had been a star for the last 2 season (a fan favourite) for Chelsea in the form of Juan Mata was sold to a rival club (Manchester United).</div>
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For all those who don't know/follow football, now you know what all that Twitter/FB buzz about 'Mata Mata Mata Something Mata Mata Mata' was all about. However this surely did shake things up quite a bit. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwE8cotjbRfKXoczOwxMB8UhbN9vxXlwWBTM6fbVoxpGrzGGX3jldyM9RTUpbebSRfo1D1-jXQKCj-WY0_rs6hvGTqerDojHLLbXuA04wzh_3S6a0TSGaJ_mB0-KAAEai8mkAarbGOyMs/s1600/Sandro+Rosell+y+Neymar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Rossell, Barcelona, FCB, Neymar, Controversy" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwE8cotjbRfKXoczOwxMB8UhbN9vxXlwWBTM6fbVoxpGrzGGX3jldyM9RTUpbebSRfo1D1-jXQKCj-WY0_rs6hvGTqerDojHLLbXuA04wzh_3S6a0TSGaJ_mB0-KAAEai8mkAarbGOyMs/s1600/Sandro+Rosell+y+Neymar.jpg" height="111" title="Rossell, Barcelona, FCB, Neymar, Controversy" width="200" /></a>If all that wasn't enough, one of the biggest clubs on the planet (in the form of Barcelona) suddenly plunged into controversies (legal turmoil) over the transfer of one player, Neymar. The President of the club stepped down and all kinds of questions are now being asked. This club that once stood for it's integrity, boasted about being transparent, always believed that they were more than just a football club when they tied up with UNICEF, are now in Murky Waters!</div>
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So much for football buzz.</div>
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<i><b>Others Titbits</b></i></div>
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There was however a silent silver lining for Bangaloreans. In a good first small step forward, the heart of the CBD of Bangalore<i><b> </b></i>(Bengaluru)<i><b> </b></i>(6 major roads including Brigade Rd, MG Road, CMH Road etc) will have Free Wifi from today (24th Jan). This isn't a change in a paradigm, but at least it's a positive step forward (however the infrastructure still needs a cartload to be worked on)!<br />
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If you're wondering why I wrote this post, then you weren't the intended target audience (and that's the safest statement I've made in over a 1000 words ;))! </div>
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Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-45143811884323273572013-08-01T04:06:00.000+05:302013-08-01T04:07:22.236+05:30"The Indian Herd Mentality", a big thanks to FB!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I wonder how people would react when they realize that anti-incumbency and induced cynicism is the reason for a good number of the netizens going gaga over Modi or NaMo (the so-called cooler way to refer to to him)?</div>
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I always tried to refrain from commenting/writing about the India Politics, as every Tom Dick and Harry nowadays has a view of how NaMo is biggest savior of mankind. </div>
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But something I recently read earlier today in one of the social media websites, has absolutely taken away any chances of me continuing to refrain. I will not divulge into the exact contents of that post, however the gist of that post meant "1USD = 80 INR will happen if Manmohan Singh continues to remain the PM of India".</div>
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My issues with the above are:</div>
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<li>I'm not an expert to comment on financial/economic matters of the nation, but if a statement as lame as this can be made sounding like an expert, then I'm Batman and I'm not going to refrain any further </li>
<li>Not everyone against NaMo is anti-nationalist. In fact from when did India become a binary nation of either Modi or Congress? Moreover the last I knew we as a nation were accommodating to China to tell us they had issues with what we did within our own country</li>
<li>You surely can have your own opinion, however those who strong advocate for any political party in India should be a resident Indian Citizen (Indian "living" in India through it's nuances)</li>
<li>If you still vouch that Manmohan Singh is the sole cause of the high dollar value, then I'd really want to see your credentials (educational/professional) which give you the authority to do so?</li>
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With that said, my annoyance is not just with that one post but with umpteen other such jingoist behavioral tendencies that have been popping up over the last 1 year, hence:</div>
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<li>If you feel strongly for NaMo then that's your opinion, others too, have the very similar right. So STFU (and yes, it is what you think it is), and stop trying to vouch against/protest against/make judgements of people who think otherwise. With every going minute you only sound like megalomaniacs</li>
<li>A national leader is someone who is accommodating to everyone's interests and makes a decision that is closest to win-win and not someone who changes the meaning of the word 'secular' for his own personal vendetta</li>
<li>There was a discussion I came across in a forum about an American Firm being hired to do the PR for NaMo, I don't know the truth behind this (and I'm more interested in knowing how many cactus's grow in the Sahara Desert than this) however my issue is not with the firm being hired, but with the fact that there are so many Indians who've blindly fallen for every claim without verifying it's merit</li>
<li>There is another cartload of people who consider NaMo the messiah of god-knows-what and may even chant Modilleluja (Praise Modi, in modern day Hebrew). They actually believed a news item that NaMo's US VISA was rejected due to the Indian Govt. asking them to do so? Again, when (if ever) was the last time the US acted on something the Indian Govt asked it to do? 5th Century BC? or was it before the Big Bang Theory?</li>
<li>There are umpteen other liberal views to NaMo:</li>
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<li>One of the most notable views which I've absolutely loved reading is by a Consultant Economist with Research and Information Systems (RIS) for Developing Countries called <a href="http://kafila.org/2013/05/23/gujarat-and-the-illusion-of-development-shipra-nigam/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shipra Nigam</a></li>
<li>A friend's (Vibhor Mathur) liberal <a href="http://poornaviraam.tumblr.com/post/55286772416/perils-of-not-being-a-modi-fan" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">view</a> of feeling the brunt of not being a NaMo fan, but not being a Congressman either</li>
<li>A funny one by a fellow blogger <a href="http://www.mjunplugged.com/" target="_blank">MJ</a>:<br />"Soooo..I was just thinking...<br />If Rahul Gandhi wins..its highly unlikely he will marry his foreign girlfriend, so he will not have any son or daughter to pass on the baton..effectively ending the political reign of the Gandhi Family..I mean Nehru's family..<br />If Modi wins, Rahul might DDLJ and come back with 2 cute kids and then win the next term to carry on the family legacy (assuming we have eradicated NaMonia by then)<br />Disclosure: I never went to any Political Party.. I dont know what happens there.. I went only to my Freshers' party.... It was fun <br />PS: Laughter is the right response..everything else is just wrong"</li>
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This is a simple view from a humble India.</div>
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I don't vouch for/endorse any political party.</div>
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and on a cheesy note, I don't subscribe to Modi and I'm not a terrorist! </div>
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Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-31877242822398055032013-06-18T04:31:00.000+05:302013-06-18T06:46:40.327+05:30I have worked myself into a frenzy of Lethargy!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is pretty much the story of 90% of the working population, in India at least. We want to do so much, but somehow in the midst of all the nuances related to work that keep us busy; we end up tired/exhausted and by the end of our working day, we consider sleep as the only other part of our black and white (work and sleep) life. In this process of always enhance lethargy we end up missing out on a lot of small, yet important parts of our life (which we only regret in retrospect).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHqDLh0a58LcLrThonHPKqsLH94cFZgXp1KCrOqNHfRu2F3hW9iiOMonpLBP28eQTwFTai2bnzhPgqbR0vxOMneiKXqJx5c40KhB1qVGabXRJUicOsP_zEGbriLAa1U0AX9rQ9HmNYuP8/s400/Lethargy.png" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was earlier today that during a conversation (nicer way to refer to an argument) with my Mom, she happened to tell me that “Anyways you’ll only be working or sleeping”. However sarcastic that may sound, it sure got me thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For a while now, I have my to-do list on a multitude of subjects set, but somehow I end up only sticking to/attempting the bare minimum (work, food, sleep and bare essentials of a Saturday night out). One of the biggies I’ve slacked on, and nearly paid the price was renewing this domain. I lost the domain irajiv.com and had to wait for over 2 months for it to be displayed for sale again, before buying it for 5 years this time around and enabling auto-renew (considering my forgetful memory).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
But then, that was not just the list of things I’d promised to start doing since moving back to Bangalore, over a year ago and ended up completely missing on. The list was endless, and a couple of high priority ones missed out and worth mentioning is:</span><br />
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some form of exercise - I know how hitting the gym ends up being a fad unless you have a routine-freak for company. Hence I considered options like dance classes, yes dance you did read that correctly, yoga at home (dad’s insistence rather) and going for a jog work every morning. But alas, none of these even came close to completion </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Toastmasters – This was something that I enjoyed to the fullest when I was in Mumbai. I always thought I was going to get going the minute I land here and find a new club. On this however, I did begin with searching for a club and even attended a couple of meetings in a couple of clubs. But after not finding a suitable club in the initial search, the look up suddenly stopped for some unknown reason</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That list as I mentioned earlier only kept on growing. Hence it is no point cribbing over spilt milk; I knew I had to do something to change the trend, however small that change is doesn’t usually matter. It’s just that kick in your backside that you need to get things going again. :) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To begin with I’m getting a Table Tennis Table, which will compensate for the exercising need and, I’ve registered/will be giving my Toastmasters ACB (Advanced Communicator Bronze) - Project 2 speech in a corporate club in Bangalore next week (thanks to a friend, Suman), which will reinvigorate my love for Toastmasters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Least this way I’ll slowly get back to doing what I feel I do the best, call it doing multiple different things to keep myself (brain & body) busy (positive outlook) OR ‘Jack of all trades’ (negative outlook) *pun intended*</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Do you find a similar trend in your life? Then <span style="font-family: inherit;">I sincere</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ly hope (wearing shoes, woodland to be specific), reading this article is a kick to your backside! :)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">PS: I have to give credit to Justin partially, for making sure I write on my blog after over a year!</span><br />
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Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0Bangalore, Karnataka 560032, India13.0267617 77.59919209999998212.9958217 77.558851599999983 13.057701699999999 77.639532599999981tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-67327475632963376762012-05-19T20:22:00.000+05:302012-05-19T21:56:02.944+05:30The Fad Nation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“Photography
is my passion, I love going on photowalks and clicking my DSLR”</div>
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“BBM
me”</div>
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“I
love wearing these loafers, they are so awfully comfortable” (Oxymoronic is the
in thing)</div>
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“I
need a new phone that works on Angry Birds” (Pun Intended)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1ILUXsEB8-vAMMHGhNFJBKGUjq4HIHJyYnbDQPUGF9evuiuzqpuK0O06oIP3uQ61BJ0N_EKcvzeBORq65oTdOJcZEFAMKlMRBldKc9K8MWLWQjqeyq-ax37stTRNDTSDyql75Jc4BqM/s1600/Fad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1ILUXsEB8-vAMMHGhNFJBKGUjq4HIHJyYnbDQPUGF9evuiuzqpuK0O06oIP3uQ61BJ0N_EKcvzeBORq65oTdOJcZEFAMKlMRBldKc9K8MWLWQjqeyq-ax37stTRNDTSDyql75Jc4BqM/s320/Fad.jpg" width="320" /></a>Well
these were some of the umpteen expressions that have become so very
characteristic of our very own dearest Fad Nation. Today everything you do,
see, wear, talk, thankfully not breath has to be so-called “trending”. Oh,
coming to trending. Twitter started it for tweets, and we’ve ended up using
that word trending for anything we can get our devil's workshop to think off. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Before
I say anything else, let me make it clear that I have no qualms about anyone’s
hobbies, interests, and skills (if you actually possess it). In fact it is our
right to do things we wish too! Moreover I’m not even making any judgments
here, as that is something I personally never do. But what my issue here is the
fact that the lately nice thought of people wanting to express themselves,
follow their dreams is going/has gone (so truly Indian) a little too far.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If
you’re good at photography, then I’ll be more than happy to appreciate your
different view of the world but please, for heaven’s sake don’t borrow
interests. Today having a camera is just so cool (not kewl, credit to Swathi
for making sure that I correct this slang which I was hooked too <span style="font-family: Wingdings;">:)</span>). Everyone ends up
buying a DSLR, better they don’t even know what it means and what exactly they
want out of a camera so 8 out of 10 people put up a status on FB saying
“Planning to buy a DSLR. Suggestions please!” I mean come on! Get a life
people! That’s not where it ends, as these brilliant people go on photowalks
(only for the first 2months since getting a camera) and they make sure they
aren’t dressed very well, thanks to the stupid never-existent stereotype that
creative people are seldom decked up. Wow! and I always thought one would never
have to make an attempt to be original or yourself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Sadly,
this entire hullabaloo about photography (with only the camera manufacturer’s
are blissful about) has made us/will make the remaining of us repulsive to
anyone who buys a camera and we’ll stereotype him/her to be a ‘wannabe’!
Photographers, Empathy!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
Not so long ago, Blackberry was the best business phone in the market. Today
it’s the best BBM phone available. There are these wonderful soul’s who even go
to that extent of ignorance by saying ‘Dude! I just bought a BBM phone’. Will
somebody please, for the love of god, tell them that BBM is just a service
offered by a Blackberry phone? But I have to say; Blackberry users are not the
only one to be blamed here. Every smartphone user (which is over 70% of the
mobile phone users, thanks to Karbonn mobile doing an Ambani with the
Smartphone market) wants to do a check-in (I’m know one person who’ll be
grinning the most after reading this paragraph ripping a Blackberry).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
In
fact, just the other day I remember seeing this person do 3 check-in’s in less
than 10 hours and all of them were airports. Not one check-in spoke about some
special place/landmark at all. I mean, what was the idea of that? Did he/she
just want to show that they only fly and consider other means of transport
inferior? Again the Indian ideology, of yearning for acceptance, identity and
publicity seems like a bottomless pit (again all of us, including me are a part
of this. Just that a few of us are considerate enough to accept our
shortcomings and try to do better).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
I
can go on and talk about a zillion such instances. But I think I’ll save that
for later. For now, if you’re wondering where the idea of writing this article
came from, well credit has to go to a friend of mine, Rishabh. Just the other
day, we were driving down to get some food and suddenly he proclaimed
(unknowingly though) “Dude! Look at those poor people walking in a line. They
seem so amused with this half constructed flyover. Maybe they’re from a remote
village or something”. For those who didn’t get it, well he was referring to a
bunch of so-called photographers going on a photowalk. They were gazing at a
half made flyover, as though they’d just discovered a Pablo masterpiece (Ay,
Carumba!).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Like
I always say, everyone deserves to have an opinion. So you are free to infer
what you want from these little thoughts that I’ve penned/typed down? But do
let me know, as it’s always nice to listen to a different perspective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
</div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-64504285910599058502011-08-28T00:36:00.006+05:302011-08-28T01:07:30.787+05:30Anna's past comes hunting<div style="text-align: justify;">Finally I've started seeing people being sane on FB about Anna Hazare. If your wondering why FB? well, that's because it's the new extended self of the Gen Xer's & O for the Gen Y's in India. Moreover FB is more like the windvane of the sentiments of the Netizen's!
<br />
<br />Atleast now people have started seeing the other side which has got them thinking.
<br />
<br />If you still haven't read my earlier post and see this video! You would then know what I mean by saying that the Jan Lokpal Bill cannot solve any corruption issue whatsoever. It is nothing but a mere makeshift which could turn monstrous in the future.
<br />
<br />Then give yourself a few minutes to think before you blindly reject a different viewpoint. The common trait among all successful people is that of decision making, and to do that they make it a point to view things with no biases and buy it at what it's worth!
<br />
<br />So people just give this a thought before you react... No prejudices please!
<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4zRHEw21h8&feature=player_embedded">Link
<br /></a>
<br />or
<br />
<br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwaX1ZRtlLPFCdUGN0usBZlC2ZsBmD9eC0gjcJDuyN_lqxfw2y-pS5S6rVHGrJvTfb-eAXKP-ayiA5UiIGsGg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>
<br />
<br />Courtesy: Anurag Sinha's post & Youtube
<br />
<br />Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-80701839270116715572011-08-24T00:47:00.005+05:302011-08-24T00:56:59.483+05:30Anna Syndrome<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZsLe_tU45cz0YJpbXFjVvbPLAOwuFTOnKPRgEEbNvkbmBAKNPATaLL1ifC64otsjzQ5kP6vjN9TWxS3icwIH3IosZBOEG1AyR3GuMtjHb6ETzmQ6uViq0fPftZI7ajzYn4S_i1H0oGwM/s1600/Anna_Hazare.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 190px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZsLe_tU45cz0YJpbXFjVvbPLAOwuFTOnKPRgEEbNvkbmBAKNPATaLL1ifC64otsjzQ5kP6vjN9TWxS3icwIH3IosZBOEG1AyR3GuMtjHb6ETzmQ6uViq0fPftZI7ajzYn4S_i1H0oGwM/s200/Anna_Hazare.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5644134894067207682" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Anna Hazare
<br />Team Anna
<br />Brand Anna
<br />Anna is India & India is Anna</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">Don’t you smell marketing or the making of the next oligarch somewhere in those words?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">For most of you the Lokpal Bill aka Anna is only anti-corruption. A few even call it the next greatest revolution in Indian history after her Independence, but how many of you’ll actually know what the bill reads to the smallest clause? I’m sure less than 5% percent of the supporters really know the whole deal of what they currently approve off, and only a smaller percent of this miniscule know the repercussions of such a dangerous protest which questions the basic principles on which this nation is built on?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">Do you feel that making another governing body stronger than the current one would solve problems? Temporarily, it still might. But think about the longer run. If an ombudsman is going to have more power than the Prime Minister of India isn’t that dangerous and dictatorial to say the least? What makes you think that there won’t be a fight for power in the New Governing Body after Anna Hazare? With due respect to all the stakeholders, it’s easy to say that Team Anna is all people who’ve done a lot to the society, but none of them have every been/seen a position of so much Power in their life; and the human brain for all we know has its own way of amazing us every time.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">Moreover if the Pro-Anna’s really wanted to make a difference and serve the country and clean it of its corruption then why don’t they stand in elections and take up positions of power & responsibility and then let actions do the talking? But instead our dear Anna Hazare’s juvenile reply to a question on whether he would join politics if given a chance was “Kichad pe pathat phekne se kichad he uchalta hai” which would literally translate to “throwing a stone in slush would only result in it splashing on you!”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">A few of you might argue that this is for the betterment of India and this agitation must go on etc. Well I surely don’t disagree that the thought & the motive has nobility written all over it and is surely something to be appreciated, but the undemocratic blackmailing methodology adopted to achieve the same is far from noble. Think about it, if the government is to heed to this demand and pass a bill in such a short period of time then before we realize we’re going to have half of India going on hunger strikes and blackmailing the government for their own various causes. This in turn would put India on a more dangerous disturbed civil agitation!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">India has been long admired as the largest democracy, which has primarily been because we follow the constitution that was set 61 years ago. But now with this kind of blackmail aren’t we going against the basic tenets of our very own constitution?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US">Now the obvious next question is can we leave corruption to stay this way? The answer is a big NO! Then instead of going on a hunger strike, a more rational and righteous way of putting forward your bill in the parliament should ideally be the first step forward. Then we need to look at a policy which decentralizes power and not empowers another single individual/body. Most importantly we need to make changes where it currently seems impossible. In other words, corruption at the lowest level from giving a bribe to a cop for riding/driving without a license to paying an RTO officer to avoid a couple of extra visits to the RTO. Only if we change in this small way will it affect the whole issue of corruption at large. Moreover we cannot point fingers at someone for corruption when we ourselves are indulging in it. You may argue that the scale is not comparable, but a wrong deed however small doesn’t have variable change associated with it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;tab-stops:183.75pt"><span lang="EN-US">I’d like to sign off hoping that all of us look to actually look at a revolution and not just a mere short term eye wash! Jai Hind!</span></p><p></p>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-80817060838785375822011-06-20T01:30:00.016+05:302011-06-20T02:09:18.665+05:30Life in the city that 'Lives'<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%; Verdana","sans-serif";font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road<br />Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go<br />So make the best of this test, and don't ask why<br />It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time<br />It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.<br />I hope you had the time of your life.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >I was listening to this song by green day as I walked back home the other day, and just as I heard the sentence ‘Time of your life’ I got pondering. I started wondering what were all those instances / nuances / acts / people / happenings which made me feel like I was indeed having the time of my life.. School was one contender for sure with the innocent fun we had, college was something that I’d already tagged as the Best days of my life.. So it had to be something else. No No not TCS. Something else. Something more vibrant, something that has the blue-skin smell of the sea, some place which has more variety with restaurants than what a life time of meals can taste, a place which where one becomes an amphibian due to the humidity, it is our very city made from seven islands—Bombay lately known as Mumbai!</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >I came to this city thanks to with the throw of destiny’s dice. To be specific all thanks to the TCS. Since then over the last 575 days, I’ve been through a plethora of emotions.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >It was hard to decide where to start off, but then I decided to take a cue from one my earlier articles and hence it had to be the city’s 153 year old backbone, Mumbai Locals. When you land in Mumbai you have people warning you of how over-crowded they are, how many people fall and die out of these, how easy it is to get picked or lose a bag, but what many people don’t tell you is how addictive these are. The cool breeze as you hang out of one, or the modern train yoga asana that you learn by standing funnily or the fights for seats to the bhajan groups on trains and even the train friends you make. It is what I’d call an intangible luxury! </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >But the same friend, who told me about Mumbai Locals, also happens to be the drummer of a leading Mumbai-based band and hence he invariably happened to talk about music & Mumbai.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >How the music here is a brilliant portrayal of emotion in words. The first thing that obviously strikes your mind is Bollywood. A city where every actor comes to become a star and the rest of us come to get a glimpse of them, once they turn stars. But Bombay also has the other side to it. The music from the west has had its own strong influence on this city. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >In fact in the 70’s Led Zepplin had come to India in an attempt to start a recording studio, they ended up staying @ the Taj and spending most of their time at a local disc called Slip Disc. They fell in love with the city so much, that over the next few years whenever they had to go to Australia or Singapore they managed to make it a point to stop by in Bombay. In fact they even got to jam with Indian artists and that forms a part of their collectives called the ‘The Bombay Sessions’.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZBrPaMrfL4aQVRgQOs8jMCIM0iQomjUh3eatOvhan3ZGnNcwJZHZgoEafF_aFsvvyAL1znKoNu69hN2ho3mXAOfMWEPIeC0fVKM-sV8PAiPjxCfFt0Cw-bYqZHdWstbNsYeYj0s9_7g/s1600/Bombay+-+Mumbai+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZBrPaMrfL4aQVRgQOs8jMCIM0iQomjUh3eatOvhan3ZGnNcwJZHZgoEafF_aFsvvyAL1znKoNu69hN2ho3mXAOfMWEPIeC0fVKM-sV8PAiPjxCfFt0Cw-bYqZHdWstbNsYeYj0s9_7g/s320/Bombay+-+Mumbai+2.jpg" alt="Bombay - Mumbai" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620032239468790434" border="0" /></a></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >Music was in the blood for this city. But Mumbai surely aint complete with just a backbone in the form of trains and blood in music. The city needed legs which would be attributed to the always buzzing streets of Mumbai. I still remember the 24<sup>th</sup> Oct last year, it was my friend’s birthday and we were on our way to a lounge by the beach called Aurus in Juhu to celebrate @ about 2. To our surprise we were stuck in a traffic jam for 30mins, but instead of getting irritated all of us were elated with the fact that this city has so much life @ that hour of the day! It’s not just Juhu go anywhere from Marine Drive to the ever-cramped Saki Naka and you won’t be disappointed! Life!</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >Well the limbs of the city won’t be complete without the hands, which would be Dharavi. A lot of you may think I’m crazy! But just hear me out.. For a first the total business @ Dharavi is estimated to be a whopping $650Mn. Now that my dear friends is a hell lotta money! For the record nearly all the farzans (an Indian snack, mostly used as a side-eat) that is sold in Mumbai comes outta Asia’s biggest slum. It is also famous for its authentic cheap leather goods, which again are re-sold in stores at Colaba (obviously at a higher price) where one would find it ‘Kewl’ to shop. But that’s not all, the HBR Case worthy Dabbawalla’s of Mumbai operate pre-dominantly out of Dharavi. So with all this said I guess the always planned re-development can wait!</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >Now.. Coming to my favourite, the tongue of this city! This can be attributed to the mouth watering delicacies that you can taste from a Sunday Sindhi Breakfast at Tharu Sweets to a Parsi lunch at Britannia & Co to high tea at theobroma, a drink @ Leopolds, hop skip and jump and you reach Bademia for succulent chicken for dinner and finally yum homemade age old ice creams from K Rustomjee. Apart from this you could also get side-eats from a yum lassi’s @ parsi diary to a sumptuous falooda at badshah’s to generously butter Pav Bhaji @ Sardar PB or chaat at Chowpati. I better stop at this else I’m goina have to go and get something to eat as these bare names are enough to get me hungry again just an hour after dinner!</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >I surely need to dedicate a couple of more articles or may be a book in order to complete the rest of Mumbai (may be the next version of the ever famous ‘Shantaram’)</span><span style=" line-height:115%;font-family:Wingdings;mso-ascii-font-family:Verdana; mso-hansi-font-family:Verdana;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings;font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" ><span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings;" >J</span></span><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >! But I surely cannot finish without mentioning the Spirit of Mumbai that was shown to the world when people got to work hours after the train blasts and the Jewel of Bombay, The Queen’s Necklace. Man you so have to sit there on a rainy day with the rain lashing against your face, and sip into a nice thick yummy ‘Bachelors’ chocolate shake! It’s just Eternal Bliss! </span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif"; font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >In the end, remember…</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;Verdana","sans-serif";font-family:";font-size:100%;color:black;" lang="EN-US" >Mumbai is city that lives,<br />A livelihood for every immigrant is what it gives;<br />It is a city that never sleeps,<br />An experience in the city takes you leaps;<br />Mumbai portrays a mother as its made from Mum, Ba & Ai,<br />Hope that would stop you from saying 'Goodbye'!</span></p>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-91218118938291313132010-10-21T11:57:00.002+05:302010-10-23T20:26:59.620+05:30Blame Game<div style="text-align: justify;">The Blame Game is something that we see in our daily lives. It’s increasingly being used in all fields and at ones workplace to be a pro @ playing the Blame Game is considered a pre-requisite to become a successful boss.<br />Now why did I choose to write about this all of a sudden? Well it has been over 6months since my last post. Owing to work/travel commitments I’ve not been able to write. But today when I was reading my regular dose of news feed on my way to work, I saw this piece of article by the Pakistan Hockey Federation & their national hockey captain. Then I thought its time that we learn how to accept defeat/mistakes gracefully and learn how to be successful not only in superficially but by the word itself.<br />Now, coming back to the article that instigated me to write this post. The Pakistan Hockey Federation claimed that the Indian crowds were being too abusive and booing them so much so that they lost against India in a do-or-die match in the recently concluded CWG. Now, there is a possibility that there would have been a handful of people in the crowd that would’ve used profane language but in general the crowd was just supporting and cheering the home team (any crowd would do this). If this was a reason why the Pakistani Team lost in the hockey match, I think they should consider having a tie-up Bose and ensure every player uses a noise-cancellation wireless headphone if & when they play (no pun intendedJ ). Secondly, and most importantly, if losing and if finishing bottom wasn’t enough, they try comparing their result against the Aussie’s and proclaim that their loss was better than India’s loss!<br />Now the other blame games of Kalmadi to Modi, from Rooney to the Aussie’s everyone is busy playing the blame game like it’s something to be proud off. There may be instances where you get blamed and criticized for something you are not solely responsible for, but doesn’t it make more sense to let your actions do the talking than words. Why do we always look for a temporary way out and never ever look at the bigger picture?<br />Before I sign off, when I say we it means all of us (including me), so I’m not giving ‘Gyaan’ (an Indian word for an over-rated, unnecessarily long, metaphor filled, stern toned piece of something that is supposed to be advice & instead ends up being meaningless and agitating the recipient).<br />I just wanted to say that it is not enough to be good in everyone else's eyes, rather its more important to have a good character and do the right things even when nobody's looking.<br /><br />PS: This post has no image nor formatting as I couldn't wait to get home and do the necessary on my computer hence I've posted it from my phone.. :)</div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-84848388804205287092010-04-18T01:04:00.007+05:302010-04-18T01:23:12.521+05:30Was it 'Just Another Day'?<div align="justify">It was about 9.15 on a saturday morning and Bruno (My Labrador) woke me up and it was then I realized that I’m late! Freak I’d missed 2 alarms thanks to sleeping with the AC gushing on my face… Nevertheless I still made it a point to read the newspaper before getting ready to leave.. I had to be there at 10! After a longish Taxi journey I reached Air India Building (Nariman Point, Mumbai) by 10.15. For a second after paying the taxi I thought to myself “I’m late, but still I’m here and it’s only going to be a couple of minutes to the 10th Floor on the elevator”.<br />I went through the regular security checks only to realize that the elevator wouldn’t go above the 2nd floor for some stupid reason. As always ‘when you are late, the environment around you delays you further’. So I ran up the remaining 8 floors to finally, I mean finally, reach the 10th Floor conference room for my ‘Toastmasters Session’! :P<br />I hadn’t missed much as the session itself was delayed due to last minute logistic issues. The theme of this session had drawn inspiration from the ‘IPL’ and was called ‘Toastmasters Premier League’. It went on really well with excellent speeches. For the record I even learnt the origins of the word ‘Shanghaied’. But yeah, I was done with the session by 11:30 and after a bit of ‘Socializing’:P with the other toastmasters, we (four of us) found ourselves at the building’s exit wondering what to do on this insanely HOT Saturday afternoon?<br />Just then I remembered the last scene from the Hindi Flick ‘Wake Up Sid’ and decided that I wanted to go to that edge of Marine Drive. The other three were nice enough (actually nice would be an understatement, I should be more grateful) to accompany me in the blistering Sun. After a while, we all realized we were human and that it was too hot to stay there without getting something to drink! So we decided to go to a Barista at Colaba Causeway. But it was to be only three outta the four of us as one our dear friend (Prathaviraj) worked on weekends.<br />It was a feeling of being in heaven when we sipped our mango smoothies after sending off Prathaviraj and getting to Barista. Just then I randomly suggested about going for a movie. So, we walked down to Metro Big Cinemas and were left with no option but a new Hindi flick called ‘Paatshala’. We got tickets and then went ‘hotel hunting’ as it was time to treat our tummies! Somehow after a lot of calls and walking into juice bars (our hunger made the juice bar look like a hotel that served Aloo Parathas and Paneer Sabzi) we reached a small hotel, but more importantly it had an AC.. Something that was as important as food to us, at that moment!<br />After that it was just busy belting (a synonym to eating when we eat like we’ve been starved for a week and the conversations are just Umm’s Ahh’s and hmmm :D) Cheese Pav Bhaji! It was about 3ish when the three of us got a cab back to the multiplex and were on time for ‘Paatshala’. It was Sreejith’s (one of the 3 souls of occupy most of this article) first Hindi movie in a theatre. In fact the day already was different for him, as he had Vegetarian food for lunch which he considered an unforgivable sin being a Pure Non-vegetarian! The movie began and man the Jinx had not yet got over. The Jinx which meant that I get to watch such movies in a theatre which don’t even deserve to be screened on an iPod sized screen. Poor Sreejith was under shock and was on the verge of saying “Who needs enemies with friends like you’ll”! ;) We (Anushree, the third un-introduced character and me) were the reason he was here. To make things worse he even missed watching his favourite football club Manchester Utd’s match (I can’t believe that being a Chelsea fan, I actually gave 14 characters of space on my blog to my rival club). </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461194987829035586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 215px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Cafe Leopold & Cafe Mondegar" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieU47nNS_zX_RQpS6FLtRPMoGofS1f9iyjjs5JsIhwVCdfILTnvSeNIlZmRzjt9ON_GEvk0EhgvkMXJbjPfik4XgJsQ3taOuYTVEmsEWXy46Cko5YBu2qhUhDGAvWusW3jshGV4fcxQuI/s320/leo+%26+Mondy.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Finally at about 6’o’clock the movie was over, and we now had to do something to get over the traumatic experience of the worst directorial venture ever seen on the face of the earth. This time it was Anushree calling the shots and there are no prizes for the guessing what it was! It had to be shopping, and we headed back to Colaba Causeway (a street shoppers delight). The next two hours went by with sounds of bargaining, the smell of food & beer (as we crossed Leopolds & Mondegars) and a crowd that had an equal number of Foreigners as Indians. We reached the end of Colaba Causeway only for Anushree to feel bad and embarrassed that being a GIRL she hadn’t shopped enough to reach the benchmark (average amount of shopping that has to be done that is virtually set in the minds of every girl). But we realized it was already getting late and we headed to the ever famous Marine Drive. The Queens Necklace as it is called was as good as ever. We took at nice stroll down marine drive, with the cool sea breeze, a few people jogging, a handful of vendors trying to make a quick buck selling bottled water at a premium and a few couples snogging. </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461194235397545602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 252px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Marine Drive" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwxUSoH7rAc_r4isedG2KuFNJxd2S79fgmG-RnazYrSZT2burbpTg6pikr4CP-IPN4mDcuQ3NyM2zrkvfl7FHsXQNIsGP9yI4N3KhyJAcIG5y0vCS7HSNYDeEuJkN6T9FMuwQ8DGZQcF4/s320/Marine+Drive.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">But, as all good things come to an end, so was this day! But not before a nice, yummy, chill, thick chocolate shake and a signature Mango Fruit Cream from ‘Bachelors’ (a 70 yr old Juice Stall at Marine Drive). Wow! It wasn’t like we’d gone clubbing or had a night out or gone white water rafting but it still was an amazing day. It was a day that was nice not because of what we did, but more because of the people involved in it and the fact that it was a day full of impromptu decisions! :)</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461193649943534402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Bachelors" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Pc7_VTN6C9jD0p0E_lfXEhnu9jriS0TWKSE3HolirAo5xQotnjDAa7-sFgxDG_c6qX_opD8xxpxikE_vp3CmwMQAi2JmuLPT6li7XRbd6P4s6919B2EBQE_8JEXA765EXR_pLMf59Hw/s320/Bachelors.jpg" border="0" />So, Cheerz to Anushree and Sreejith and looking forward to more such day’s with a difference! I’d like to end this post with a quote by Fydor Dostoevsky <div align="justify"><div><div align="justify"><blockquote><div align="justify">We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken</div></blockquote></div></div><br /></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-45994722383449356412010-03-14T14:08:00.008+05:302010-03-14T14:42:58.369+05:304 Acts<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The first time you try to go in it is not easy. You tend to wonder how people can like something like this. But as you do it more often, you start enjoying it and realize that it is indeed the best there is. Moreover I’m talking about a phenomenon that most of us are familiar with. In fact nowadays people are forced into this at a very young age, as they have no other option.<br />I can pretty much guess what’s in your mind at this moment. There may be a few who think I’m bordering on perverseness and the others who are sure that this is a mere attention grabber. I think I’d partially agree with the latter school of thought, as only when things are done with a difference, it is retained by our human brain. Well, all this while I was talking about Getting into Mumbai Locals! :)<br />It is hard to get in the first time, you hate the crowd and a few of us tend to feel claustrophobic. But, it’s indeed the lifeline of Amchi Mumbai. Youngsters today use it on a regular basis to get to school as it saves time as compared to the school buses of the past. Lastly the more you use it, the more you appreciate the time it saves and like it! </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></div></span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448413327884506882" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 339px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 289px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Mumbai Local" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe8RAmzI4pvb9UEjWAMgi-kGDih34aiyT2K5Q9TpA592Hp5X9TUq2AlFkOz_pmPuRNPp57TrbMVnx19klwq6aiHiVn8dJ0F_kziSY4eRubvuw93dpLjxc3R-IPrh1q_izz0fKe12Rnk78/s320/Mumbai+Local2.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="justify">I’ve been here in Mumbai for about 3months now. Before I could land in Mumbai, I had a lot of people advising me to rent a residence very close to my place of work. Another bunch of them trying to tell me how horrifyingly crowded a train would be. But, as always I stood with my belief that ‘Experience is thy best teacher’ and decided to try it out on my own. So let me share a few of my experiences in Mumbai Locals. I have structured my article drawing inspiration from Shakespeare into Acts! J Act 1 to Act 4. </p><p align="justify"><strong>Act 1: The awakening<br /></strong>I landed in Mumbai on the 22nd November 2009 and reached my aunt’s place in a silent location in Mumbai called Malabar hill. The next day was my first day at work, a new page in my life. I was to go to Malad from the Grant road station (these are two stations on the Western Line in Mumbai which are 35kms apart). I bought a ticket (and initially wondered how it could be so cheap, just 8 bucks!) and waited for a train. The train came by and I got in, it was all ok (for an instance I thought what were all my friends fussing about.. hmmm.. sissies). The train went on and it reached the ever famous Dadar station, and all of a sudden people got into the train as though the world was about to end, and this was the only train that would take them to safety. People stood everywhere, on the windows, above the train, between compartments and a huge number of them hanging out and still giving an expression of being in a luxury suite of a five-star hotel! That is the exact moment I got to know from a co-passenger (who guessed from the look on my face that this was my first time) that there was also a first-class compartment to this train. A little too late, but nevertheless the train went on, and there was an announcement that ‘Goregaon’ was approaching (this is the station that precedes Malad). Just then my co-passenger told me to stand in case I wanted to get down at Malad. Finally we were at Malad, and before the train could come to a complete halt, this person from behind shouted ‘MALAD’… and the next thing I knew, I was on the Malad Platform (and thankfully in one piece, but for the rest for the day, I was forced to call my shirt a crushed look designer wear)..<br />I was awakened and I knew this wasn’t easy and I had to keep my eyes open. But I did have this old habit of assuming things once in a while, which was to be revisited the very next day. That brings me to:<br /></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></div></span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448407281825561698" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 346px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 427px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Mumbai Train Route" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9ORl6w0xUBeF33hTFWz_qkXu6ZBPOC1a2sAHp2QwMSdmDWEsNPzDl7Cu4dYm4ESItw4XZerF0Ox48ZORbWcj7WsTv-aKHC_23DhxSeYC608jf5VqOYP3Z3eBFhFtjxZkxBlTz75FL3lQ/s320/Mumbai+Local.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p align="justify"><strong>Act 2: Never Assume in Mumbai<br /></strong>I was proud to have got my first class pass made for the route, and I stood with pride and a crease-free shirt with a ‘cool water’s’ fragrance. The train came by and I got in, it seemed a nice journey today. No pushing and even the crowd getting in at Dadar was comparatively saner, I felt delighted. The train went on, it reached Andheri(one of the major stations on the western line between Grant Road and Malad) and interestingly a lot of people got in and the train halted there for a surprising 3mins. And, all of a sudden the train started moving backwards. Before I could react, there was my second lesson in Mumbai, not all trains goto Malad, there are trains that go only till Andheri and Bandra.<br />I had to get down at Ville Parle (the station before Andheri) and take another train. Funny for a few, in fact even I had a laugh. In all it was another learning, and a page added to my diary of experiences. But I still hadn’t gone through an experience that was rather common. That brings me to:<br /><strong>Act 3: It is rather common<br /></strong>A few days went by and I soon got the hang of Mumbai trains and especially the western line. I started talking the railway language, ‘Churchgate Fast, Borivali Slow, All fast trains after 8 stop in the last three stations’. I was pleased with my new skill in using public transport so effectively, something I had never done in Bangalore. Moreover it was a small feeling of an achievement of sorts.<br />Over a period of time, I started getting off at Ville Parle and going with a friend of mine in his car (as he was bored to drive alone to Malad). I used to give him a buzz when I reached Santa Cruz station and it was like a signal for him to get ready.<br />Then one fine day, I got in to the train as usual, it went on and suddenly I get a call from this friend of mine asking me if ‘I’m not coming today’. I wondered why he was asking this, and Just then the announcement in the train said ‘next station Kandivili’ (this station comes after Malad). I’d slept for the first time in a Mumbai train and it turned out to be another mistake rather another experience for me in Amchi Mumbai’s very own local train. An experience that is rather common.<br />All these experiences and I thought I’d learnt a lot about Mumbai trains and that now I could proudly proclaim to be a mumbaikar. Reality struck, and it told me in a loud voice that ‘You’ve a long way to go my son’. That brings me to:<br /><strong>Act 4: Why only me?<br /></strong>I had made the mistakes and learnt the hard way. I had gone through crowded trains, I’d overslept and I had got down in a wrong station. The final Act which I would call a grand finale was on a Thursday evening when I had to attend a friend’s wedding reception at Borivali. I finished work at Malad, had to goto Andheri the same afternoon for work, after which I took an auto to Borivali (as the trains in this route during evenings were too crowded). It took me just 2 hrs and 20mins to reach Borivali, but nevertheless I’d reached on time! I met my other friends and had a nice time. It was about 11.30 when we guys decided to leave.<br />All my friends stayed rather closer to Borivali and hence decided on taking an auto. But for me ‘train’ was the only option. As this place was at the end of Borivali west, I could’nt get an auto to the station. Finally one guy agreed to drop me for 100bucks to the station, not Borivali but Dahisar. I agreed (not like I had any other options) and reached the station. It was a rather bald station, with literally nothing. No proper digital sign boards no people no chai-walas nothing. I waited for 15mins and a train arrived. I got in only to discover 5mins later that this was a Virar fast (Virar is the last station on the western line, it was about 55km from my destination Grant Road) and I had got into the train in the wrong direction. Holy Jesus Christ I exclaimed, but what could I possibly do. I thought it to be very risky to get off at any other station and hence I had to goto Virar and come back to grant road in that very train.<br />The story didn’t end there. As the train approached Malad on its way back, this person got into the rather deserted first class compartment and sat next to me. Soon he even asked me if I was new to this route as he is a regular and hadn’t seen me ever. I did agree only to discover from him that ‘after 11 getting mugged was a very common feature in first class compartments’. Man what a day and what a time for him to spook me with that? One hell of a train journey it was. First of all I got into the wrong train and was close to getting lost over that I listen to this from a man at 1.30 in the night. Wow!! J<br />Anyways I did manage to get home safely by 2.15 that night. </p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Train journey's in Mumbai has thought me a lot and I’ve learnt to be cautious, never assume, to be tolerant and to always be on your toes. Hence I’d like to finish my article with a quote about Mumbai trains from Suketu Mehta’s famous book ‘Maximum City’: </span></p><em><blockquote><p align="justify"><em>Of hands unfurling from a packed Bombay train compartment like petals, reaching<br />out to grab that one more commuter and whisk him on board. Here the metal of the compartment is unfurled like some grotesque petals, side and top.</em></p></blockquote></em>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-78449458460477328052010-02-09T00:11:00.008+05:302010-02-09T00:22:45.376+05:30Meet the Corporates: The story of every common man WITH a MNC<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Before you jump to any conclusions of a grammatical error, I’d like to expand the acronym ‘Multi National Cannibals’! Well I’m pretty sure every normal human being who hates wasting time, hates being told what to do and likes using his brain would surely agree with me on that acronym! (If you’ve got better suggestions... your welcome to express all your frustration in three words! Lolz..)<br />I’ve heard a lot of people fuss over corporate life. In fact for a while now I’ve heard all my friends talk about how monotonous and boring your life becomes once you enter this phase of your life. But no one actually told me how and why it is such a spoil sport... Guess it was left for me to find discover! Like they say, experience is thy best teacher! :) </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435946526020444178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 241px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Corporate Life" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIHfq1kbOE4Byp5mTgETO1otzNHoVeIc39au-S7La55VC3XSW7Orkkhg28jstrnONY7N_7dZFZ2Y9Jk4pA3arbcvPlgLAjWJI3-r9BbhSxPcfRQmhEqY80l5V3wAJmmrX7JzBNEHz1IhU/s320/Corporate+Life.jpg" border="0" />Based on a lot of inputs and strangers reviews over corporate life, I’ve kinda figured out a few theories that work here:</span></p><div align="justify"><ul><li><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Theory 1: The Diligent v/s Intelligent Dilemma<br />Well if you’ve to be successful in a huge corporate then you have to be intelligent. Before you jump to any conclusions, what i meant is you have to be intelligent enough to realise that here people only look at diligent workers and if you give break-through ideas you would be considered inexperienced.<br />Funny isn’t it? If you are Intelligent then you wouldn’t use your intelligence!</span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Theory 2: The Dual-faced Architecture<br />Every person who enters a corporate and wants to sustain in it, has to learn the art of Hypocrisy. This is an art that is learnt and honed with practise. Some MNC’s call this KT (Knowledge Transfer)</span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Theory 3: Meeting Impossible<br />Meeting Impossible has two meanings. This is by far the most used theory in MNC’s today. Firstly, it refers to the fact that every organization loves taking care of their employees. They are always ready to give you a excellent salary hikes or bonus for meeting their so called TARGETS (the possibility of meeting which is equal to that of a crow turning white)<br />Secondly, it refers to the amazingly long meetings which specialize in changing the way decisions are made. In other words, a decision which normally would be taken in 2 minutes would be taken in 2hours. The Rationale for which is that the decision maker already has made up his mind, and for 2 hours he tries to flaunt his authority and tries his very best to demean you!</span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;">Theory 4: The Boss-Superboss Chemistry<br />This in other words is the ever efficient supply chain of your organization. It is the only SCM technique where the final output is always exponentially more than the input. To explain this technique I would like to illustrate with an example.<br />e.g. X is the head of a vertical in a MNC. Y reports to X and is a Proj. Leader (PL). The rest of us are the TM’s (Team Members). On a sunny Wednesday morning, X is about to leave for work and just then his wife asks him to put the washing machine on his way to work as she has a kitty party to attend. This results in a clash of egos and X is totally irritated and drives to work (as usual the traffic is bad and he misses all the traffic signal’s as his day is already bad).<br />He reaches work and looks for reasons to vent out his anger. So he calls Y and yells at Y for a missing comma in a report. Y in turn comes to his/her TM’s, yells at them in double the intensity ‘quoting the missing comma’ and puts a full-stop on their appraisals. </span></li></ul></div><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:100%;">What say people?? The Moral of this article is open to interpretation!<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><em></em></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Disclaimer: All the characters in this article are purely unintentional. J This is written without keeping any real/living person in mind. :)</em></span></span></p>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-60413249388122481032009-10-19T13:38:00.003+05:302009-10-19T13:51:50.251+05:30Whatte pic?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRMLZisjqfVE2JHGY4la-vRUEYtfp4noKU8BuYVvEuXFK_fNp9tV-CAfx0JE0Tml9yYjPSVzzW6bdnQmj5P99D48bW5lvp3B0C8zuFXWY_l7RNpBXtCY8L89gTmr5B5Dobw_p0auaN5H8/s1600-h/Skilled+Labour.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 333px; height: 274px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRMLZisjqfVE2JHGY4la-vRUEYtfp4noKU8BuYVvEuXFK_fNp9tV-CAfx0JE0Tml9yYjPSVzzW6bdnQmj5P99D48bW5lvp3B0C8zuFXWY_l7RNpBXtCY8L89gTmr5B5Dobw_p0auaN5H8/s320/Skilled+Labour.jpg" alt="Cheap Skilled Labour" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394221730172647170" border="0" /></a><br />What do u think?<br /><ul><li>Abundance of Skilled Labour (OR)</li><li>One of the worst cases reported in the aftermath of Global recession</li></ul>Leave ya comments ppl!!!Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-63379720549689493302009-10-18T00:19:00.009+05:302009-10-18T01:21:58.249+05:30Change is good!<div style="text-align: justify;">A couple of days ago, I took an autorickshaw back home and the meter showed a fare of INR 46, I gave the driver a INR 50 note and walked away without taking back the change. It was like an unwritten code that any change below INR 5 will not be asked! That's when I suddenly thought how the value attached to spending INR 5 has become close to negligible (excluding the BPL families), and the main factor for this being the introduction of the 5 rupee coin.<br />The 50 paise coins, if any have literally become extinct, and by chance you have one, may be it can add to a numismatics collection. For those who aspire to be called a philanthropist by giving it to a beggar, I doubt he will take it! I wouldn't be surprised if he gives you a 1 rupee coin in return and walks away. :)<br />So today a 5 rupee coin is spent and kept on par with what a 1 rupee coin was about 5-6years ago. Hence there has been an increase in the spending pattern of the consumers (one may attribute this to many other economic and societal reasons too).<br />Roughly about a week ago, I was sitting in this coffee shop with a friend, and just as we finished paying the bill and when we were taking back the change I noticed that we had got a new looking coin. It was the new 10rupee coin which was released earlier this year and was also India's first bi-metallic coin. I pondered for a few minutes and I was pretty sure with the way of life changing ever so rapidly (a lot faster than it was 5-6years ago) the new 10rupee coin will gain acceptance and occupy the place of the 5rupee coin more faster than expected.<br />If the 5 rupee coin took 2-3years to replace the 1 rupee coin, then I'm sure the 10rupee coin will take only about a year.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytoxqEBpqpw567uoP9ZFjGSb2CX5imkQwIkoIuet3AoIQgg1CCcn8cSd9y4tIn-pLAiqnyal2JMgVGZsucecTioUjkJpeoZomXGg1wh2oQqzAZCmlA2rbg99JvjYgyYogtIorIJDCxTg/s1600-h/10+rupee.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 328px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytoxqEBpqpw567uoP9ZFjGSb2CX5imkQwIkoIuet3AoIQgg1CCcn8cSd9y4tIn-pLAiqnyal2JMgVGZsucecTioUjkJpeoZomXGg1wh2oQqzAZCmlA2rbg99JvjYgyYogtIorIJDCxTg/s320/10+rupee.jpg" alt="Indian coins" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393654331478368098" border="0" /></a>The long and short of the story is that the introduction of higher value coins and notes are perfect for marketers. Its literally like a boon. The consumers are now tempted to spend more. Marketers need to now focus on making the product offering more attractive and can worry less about changing the mentality of the consumers with respect to spending.<br />Economically the 'Indian middle-class consumer segment' (with its ever increasing spending power) which is already the center of attraction for nearly all the global brands will now start to look even more attractive. Moreover the continuosly created demand by the Indian consumers has played a big role in helping the world out off recession (again there are many reasons in this context, I have taken this one as it pertains to the article) and will also help speeden the recovery path.<br />That's what one new coin can do! :)<br />Enjoying spending people!! ;)<br />Change is good, Indeed!!! :D<br /></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-37036240857132339932009-10-06T12:52:00.008+05:302009-10-06T23:53:34.823+05:30For the Greater Good: Save the Planet, Your Planet!<div style="text-align: justify;">A common phenomenon all our lives is the fact that when we grow up and have a room of our own, we take care of the room and bear ownership of it, but the rest of the house can go to the bin and we would be least bothered. As time goes on we grow up and buy a house, and now we elevate from ownership of the room to that of the whole house. Normally the elevation should go on, but instead we change from ownership of a house to that of houses. Hence always 'Mother Earth' which is the greater home of ours is always the one losing out. I'm not blaming anyone, as most of us (including myself) are no exception to this phenomenon.<br />On the other end of the spectrum, just a few days ago the world's most powerful man Obama addressed the G20 summit with one of the key issues there being the 'Global Climate Change'. Its a matter concern that there has been a drastic change in the climate. Unusually horrendous storms and natural disasters seem to rock mother earth once in every 2-3years. And all of a sudden everyone is talking about the need to address this issue.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaP1inDr_BRi0w9XZ_TW3f_8jBVWwf7ErLjRrlGL9hEOWj4WWYWXxgYqhl-Jj009KQvxRwKcg3kF4vn_d0ms1VPn1u9uaY1kHN1URe0neaZVU3SjILnhHA0MBTA7EpXmt_C80F-xuC52k/s1600-h/Climatic+Change.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaP1inDr_BRi0w9XZ_TW3f_8jBVWwf7ErLjRrlGL9hEOWj4WWYWXxgYqhl-Jj009KQvxRwKcg3kF4vn_d0ms1VPn1u9uaY1kHN1URe0neaZVU3SjILnhHA0MBTA7EpXmt_C80F-xuC52k/s320/Climatic+Change.jpg" alt="Climate Change" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389544982758459378" border="0" /></a>India is no exception to this. Roughly a couple of month ago, a majority of the northern states in India had announced that there was a drought owing to less than normal rainfall. Southern states saw some rainfall but still weren't content and had power cuts. Well all that has changed so drastically that nowadays the headlines in every newspaper in India talks about the worse floods in over 106years in the two Indian states, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Surprised? Don't be! As this is pretty much what we must be ready for at the rate at which the climate is changing.<br />There may still be a few who say, this is a Global issue and 'I can't do anything about it, let him/her do it then I'll think bout it'!<br />But i'm afraid this time you can't run away from responsibility, because this issue is directly affecting all of us. Can we do anything? I say yes, and it won't take too much of your time or money; and it will either directly or indirectly help the cause:<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Switch off your bike/car everytime you stand at a signal</li><li>Walk or cycle whenever your destination is within 2km (this would also do a world of good to our health as most of us know what an unhealthy over-worked high stressed lives that we are leading)</li><li>Use rain water harvesting</li><li>Switch off the light/fan/AC/TV etc. whenever you walk out the room</li><li>If you have an unused garrage space in your compound, instead of converting it to a room for negligible rent. Convert it to an open space to make your compound more greener.<br /></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Least by doing this you can surely have a clear conscience and feel good about it, and if all of us can do this small bit, it would be as Neil Armstrong earlier said: "A small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind"!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qmHVhvP4MyZkapfL34nSjNkMnOTOAV2N59cZ3yMNA5iWn7gmxTrolDniqD-hF6GIioQirfSTBlEtBrhnb80l1wDmbtJEeFtBjI-HtgcR5WvPzgFWxg4gl5C3g-rjLoyfAXfgLaQasTk/s1600-h/Save+the+Planet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 325px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8qmHVhvP4MyZkapfL34nSjNkMnOTOAV2N59cZ3yMNA5iWn7gmxTrolDniqD-hF6GIioQirfSTBlEtBrhnb80l1wDmbtJEeFtBjI-HtgcR5WvPzgFWxg4gl5C3g-rjLoyfAXfgLaQasTk/s320/Save+the+Planet.jpg" alt="Save the Planet" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389544993621519298" border="0" /></a>Pardon me if I sound too stereotype and if this sounds like boring advise,(or gyan in desi style) but people this is more of a plea or a request.<blockquote>Here's a plea to save the planet,<br />Doing it is ones own call;<br />To mother earth we this as a debt,<br />Else all of mankind may eventually fall!</blockquote></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-88170131859738220892009-10-03T18:10:00.007+05:302009-10-03T18:50:38.358+05:30"Musharraf is no more bereft of what he deserves"<div style="text-align: justify;">Well I first thought posting this video as my status on facebook, but then I thought it deserved an opinion and a better reach.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw74ekr1Z1tMBsExpi3SFAZCG0_yDrD5CiWIuxP2gdaAZXFeW2szGOP2lNDmA5F5iPkQXDffwjBtC58pKy6ZA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /></div><br />This post is like a second part to my earlier post titled "<a href="http://itsbuzz.blogspot.com/2009/07/terrorists-are-not-born-they-are-made.html">Terrorists are not born. they are made</a>". It clearly shows how Pakistan and esp. 'Gen. Pervez Musharraf' has taken every muslim for granted and actually dented (or rather call it destroyed) the image of muslims world over. Here is a snipped from the India Today Conclave, which took place in Delhi earlier this year. Its surprising though how the Indian Media which goes gaga even for a lost fingernail has over looked this!!!<br />It shows how Pakistan has taken Indian Muslims(rather muslims world over) for granted and has always assumed their point of view as the single view of muslims. Here a Maulana shows his displeasure with Musharraf and his actions and asks him to stop interfering or making comments about India.<br />The same man 'Musharraf' who authored "In the line of Fire: A Memoir" and proudly proclaimed to be the man behind starting talks about Kashmir with India and thought of himself to be the proud s0-called, god knows why, unnecessary saviour (for no reason) of the Indian Muslims(who seem to be more than pleased in their secular motherland India), is being found wanted after the vocal slap from the Indian Maulana.<br />Looking at his facial expressions at the end of the short video I was reminded of the song "Right Round by Flo Rida". I'd like to quote a couple of lines of the lyrics which is apt for this situation:<br /><blockquote>You spin my head right round, right round<br />When you go down, when you go down down</blockquote>Well i'm pretty sure if he ever decides to listen to an english song (which is as likely as finding life in Mars) this should be the Numero Uno! :)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">"I believe Secular Pluralism is the need of the hour,<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">For it may be too late if we go too far"<br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-88847547550464462962009-09-09T13:14:00.009+05:302009-09-09T16:17:26.022+05:30Are you a Blogger or a Forger?<div style="text-align: justify;">Lately I have been searching the internet and reviewing various blogs (now that every Tom, Dick and Harry writes one). With a number of blogs mushrooming and growing at an exponential rate, I took a second to ponder on how all of a sudden so many people have started expressing their views, and for all you know it may result in the increase in the number of youngsters taking up Journalism as a major.<br />But alas, that hope and vision would be too farsighted. Too my amusement I found that a majority of these new bloggers use a tool that I would call CCPS (Cut or Copy, Paste and Submit) ;)! All you need to do is copy a line from these blogs and put it for search on google, and you would get the original source in less than a second. A few may raise questions on the reason for this act?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4cD7XFDZ-K_D3IcGRfQBwtFV0MQKjNrGmuO8s2vBVZPj4St-HWva4uG_UqtbQWfMC-hzqjzIKJeFP5WvvGsJOLQRFp6ANmqwHGxLRxoAHMDP7gkzzUpnNHDQvlO592p6AbL9Fa_nEY0/s1600-h/Bloggers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 361px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4cD7XFDZ-K_D3IcGRfQBwtFV0MQKjNrGmuO8s2vBVZPj4St-HWva4uG_UqtbQWfMC-hzqjzIKJeFP5WvvGsJOLQRFp6ANmqwHGxLRxoAHMDP7gkzzUpnNHDQvlO592p6AbL9Fa_nEY0/s320/Bloggers.jpg" alt="Bloggers" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379415934787572882" border="0" /></a>To me this can be a result of three possibilities:<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>A noble cause of spreading the intellectual views of the original authors (Highly improbable though ;) )</li><li>Identity Crisis which in turn leads them to a desperate need for undeserved publicity thereby resulting in copied articles (High probable ;) )</li><li>Its cool aka kewl to have a blog thereby in a quest for social acceptance! (Probable ;) )</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">So in the end of the day, the ones whom I thought were worth the title 'Bloggers' are those who posted stuff that was:<br /></div><ol style="text-align: justify;"><li>Original</li><li>Quoted - Due credit going to the original author</li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Be original, Be a Blogger,<br />Please don't copy and emulate a forger;</blockquote>Cheerz to the Bloggers!!!<br /></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-88766282823867153092009-08-28T23:49:00.003+05:302009-08-29T00:08:44.993+05:30Bzzzzzzz: Harley is in town mate!<p align="justify">The mere sight of this on Indian roads, and most of the viewers would drop their jaws with awe. I’m talking about the sight of a Harley Davidson on Bangalore roads. The last time I saw one, it was for display at Leela Palace and supposedly belonged to the GM of Leela Palace Mr. Charles De Foucault.</p> <p align="justify">But come 2010 its no more going to be a rare sight! What I am talking about is the fact that Harley Davidson are going to hit the Indian Roads in mid-2010. After a 2 year negotiation with the Indian government regarding reduction in the 110% import duty, Harley Davidson have decided to price it at INR 7 – 15 lakhs (double of what it costs in the US) and create a niche segment for this bike.</p> <p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEc1al2cBtUi4YoYU0Glhu62g_g1_OPd7tilC0cicyqY02ug-9yh5lVEzQ_T1ll629G2zgCv8k1uwoHn7WVZVyp5fN3B1SqWuiZ42yaBptBR7NvLpIyXzJiNUiQ1qWFgvTU1TIM6nuAYs/s1600-h/Harley.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEc1al2cBtUi4YoYU0Glhu62g_g1_OPd7tilC0cicyqY02ug-9yh5lVEzQ_T1ll629G2zgCv8k1uwoHn7WVZVyp5fN3B1SqWuiZ42yaBptBR7NvLpIyXzJiNUiQ1qWFgvTU1TIM6nuAYs/s320/Harley.jpg" alt="Harley Davidson" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375085552711916018" border="0" /></a></p><p align="justify">Harley Davidson would be entering the 7million strong Indian motorcycle market, which as of now has a very small percentage of super bikes. The superbikes sold in India are mainly the Yamaha R1, Yamaha R6 and Suzuki Hayabusa; which together sell about 400 bikes a year. </p> <p align="justify">According to Matthew Levatich, president and COO, Harley-Davidson they intend selling about 100 units a year and are initially bringing about 15 designs (the flagship Fatboy and Night Rod Special would be the first 2 models to be unveiled) out of their 43 existing models. They are also open to making other types of motorcycles and different engines which would be more suitable to the Indian riders.</p> <p align="justify">The Indian consumer would soon have access to buying Harley’s, Jaguars, Volkswagens, Land cruiser’s and what not. But the million dollar question is:</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">When will the Indian roads be good enough for consumers to enjoy these street kings to its fullest?</p></blockquote>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-19028148331859946252009-08-16T23:01:00.006+05:302009-08-16T23:11:26.541+05:30You need Lady Luck even here :)Was out for a coffee and having a nice relaxing weekend and saw this interesting signboard on the washroom door. Hope it makes you smile!<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnORGfsDT3KqO9h3fO1KW6Td6e4S2NFXLS3DnkA6-WkhiZrQvlRidpfvrOtYvfW4Fs-oLqrMvYaWBJab3A7Mj48uoaT8LVuYCU3fl6R7hdlpqJXMuFy9BgjT0CFKGX21Muto9lasnLmXE/s1600-h/Picture.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 363px; height: 316px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnORGfsDT3KqO9h3fO1KW6Td6e4S2NFXLS3DnkA6-WkhiZrQvlRidpfvrOtYvfW4Fs-oLqrMvYaWBJab3A7Mj48uoaT8LVuYCU3fl6R7hdlpqJXMuFy9BgjT0CFKGX21Muto9lasnLmXE/s320/Picture.jpg" alt="Funny Washroom" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370616581866778114" border="0" /></a>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-78416973409892512372009-08-15T13:05:00.016+05:302009-08-15T14:56:00.242+05:30'Dreaded Synonyms' - Swine Flue and Influenza A!<ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The most dangerous and widespread ooutbreak after the Hongkong Flu, Spanish and Asian Flu</li><li>WHO marked this pandemic at Level 6 after over 4 decades</li><li>Pune in India is the worst affected by this flu</li><li>Medicine research on a cure for this dangerous flu has amounted to about $390million</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PKGLl2LS7vM85Jvh0DaZTTrovREdNvNO1YDiaTbW_yAiwKgf0khlyGbWRPOuwgtOfc4qn3FwyY4W5__JlR0EHjKCYN-kRoiG2KIKOfPYHiJ6uCWH024xC2RXmAVUMGaliJjLG4VZ9SY/s1600-h/Swine1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 164px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PKGLl2LS7vM85Jvh0DaZTTrovREdNvNO1YDiaTbW_yAiwKgf0khlyGbWRPOuwgtOfc4qn3FwyY4W5__JlR0EHjKCYN-kRoiG2KIKOfPYHiJ6uCWH024xC2RXmAVUMGaliJjLG4VZ9SY/s200/Swine1.jpg" alt="Swine Flu" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370109645409272882" border="0" /></a><br />I'm sure you know what i'm talking about - "SWINE FLU". Well, everyday in the newspapers and media you have something about Swine Flu, and unfortunately the news of a casualty from swine flu is inevitable in everyday's news.<br /><br /><br />But is Swine Flu really this deadly?<br /><br />I'd like to challenge the fact that it is the most deadliest virus in over decades. Firstly a simple statistic to start off my debate:<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Over 1.6 lakh people infected around the world with Swine Flu, of which about 1100 people died</li><li>But every year, about 2.5-4 lakh people die around the world due to normal Flu</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">Swine flu has a cure in the form of Tamiflu, which has cured a huge chunk of the affected population. Moreover if the cases of death's are seen, most of them have already had other health issues, hence swine flu has only added to this. The recent case of a 26-year old teacher in Bengaluru who died owing to being affected with swine flu, had an acute case of diabetes.<br /><br />Well when it is seen that this Flu is like any other flu, then why all this panic?<br />Like always the media should be given credit for creating this frenzy (just another TRP increasing mechanism). But the mechanism has not only increased <span style="font-style: italic;">TRP</span>, but also increased the sales of protective masks.<br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">marketer</span> too has a role to play in this, with the fact that a protective mask called the N95 is the so-called branded protective mask (Phew :) )!<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Economics</span> has its say too - Remember the supply-demand curve. A normal mask costing INR 20 is being sold at increased price of INR 100 - INR 150! When the demand exceeds the supply the price keeps rising till a point where the supply and demand meet.<br /><br />Now picture this? Every winter when there is a climatic change and the cooler temperatures set in, normal viruses are prevalent everywhere and get into everyone. A few who get affected with viral fever are those whose immune system gives way! Then shouldn't swine flu behave in the same manner being a virus itself? Moreover in America, pigs get swine flu every year during a particular time after which a few die and the rest survive, then how on earth did a human being, only get affected this year?? Unless done on purpose! (Or may be the virus consulted an<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>astrologer and choose the right time to start affecting human beings ;) lol... ).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjninlOzOiluh0SO228TXktIyQG_swj_dZ9qRNGeWfHMIoKlLh29krLnSfqo3efvQO2rKSaumeLOP_vu4PcXQiZJieCLfZq0KWQLiLkVmjeb5PVSkvYJ9rnK9mKCIeNQIYlLfA4mJbBCYE/s1600-h/Swine2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 379px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjninlOzOiluh0SO228TXktIyQG_swj_dZ9qRNGeWfHMIoKlLh29krLnSfqo3efvQO2rKSaumeLOP_vu4PcXQiZJieCLfZq0KWQLiLkVmjeb5PVSkvYJ9rnK9mKCIeNQIYlLfA4mJbBCYE/s400/Swine2.jpg" alt="Swine Flu" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370109411956006546" border="0" /></a>The more dangerous issue in question is that of Dengue fever which seems to have started flirting with Bengaluru having two casualties. This unlike Swine Flu has no guaranteed medical treatment. There are no specialised drugs.<br /><br />PRECAUTION<br />But everything said and done, we are all human and tend to be apprehensive when anything that has claimed lives is on the outbreak. In case you believe in homeopathy, here's a medicine that you may want to have<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Influenzium 200: The recommended dosage is 5 pills 3 times 3days and it would (as the homeopath's proclaim to make you immune to the Swine Flu virus hence a good precautionary measure</li></ul>Just like to re-emphasize the age old saying:<br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>"Health is Wealth"</blockquote>So stay healthy and stay happy people!Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-36841807351801123782009-08-03T01:48:00.009+05:302009-08-03T02:01:00.124+05:30They Journey from a Premium to a Mass Market Brand!<blockquote> <p align="justify">‘Bangalore has a galore of promotional offers’ </p><p align="justify"><strong>OR</strong> </p><p align="justify">‘Bangalore is on sale’<br /></p></blockquote> <p align="justify">It’s up to one’s own perception to decide which one more appropriately describes the fact that nearly everything that is sold in retail outlets and company showrooms in Bangalore is being offered at discounted prices. Name it from clothes to jewellery to watches to shoes to mobiles to shades etc has a discount. This has been going on for roughly a month in Bangalore. </p><p align="justify">For quite some time now, Bangalore has been having discounts and offers running during the months of June and July as in South India (or may be even the whole of India) month’s with no festival in it are considered low business months. Our earlier generations believed in buying clothes, watches, jewellery etc during festivals and hence the peak business days were the once preceding the festivals. </p><p align="justify">But now times have changed, and Bangalore has by far been influenced and changed to the greatest extent by westernization and increase in purchasing power among the Indian metros. With the IT boom and the fact that Bangalore is now a cosmopolitan with a huge amount of techies, the purchasing power of the people of the age group of 20-35 has increased considerably in the last decade. </p><p align="justify">I would for one term the Bangaloreans in the age group of 20-28 as “<strong>Locomotive Shoppers</strong>”. Previous generations believed in <em>Window Shopping,</em> where they would just pass by stores and look at products stocked, on the other hand, Locomotive Shoppers are an extension to Window Shopping where they buy anything that they like (provided it is within their budget) as and when they see it. The product categories that attracts nearly all locomotive shoppers are: Clothes, Shoes, Watches and sometimes even Jewellery.<br /></p><p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOI5xzcbDG-IQR9bzBp06fQKjFWbRAnOc1-wcrdHlezeJM735r1ixswW98UhtpR0bjUa9Hw2_whM58uVuVa8-VCaQSl4N3_75pTwS72RrMJ94Ey14nHEA2V3hf881ONXXGW-Y-i6Vlag4/s1600-h/Sale.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOI5xzcbDG-IQR9bzBp06fQKjFWbRAnOc1-wcrdHlezeJM735r1ixswW98UhtpR0bjUa9Hw2_whM58uVuVa8-VCaQSl4N3_75pTwS72RrMJ94Ey14nHEA2V3hf881ONXXGW-Y-i6Vlag4/s320/Sale.jpg" alt="Bangalore Sale" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365466216954259874" border="0" /></a></p><p style="font-weight: bold;" align="justify">Aftermath of the Discount Race in Bangalore </p><p align="justify">United Colors of Benetton (UCB) offers upto 70% off, Levis offers a flat 50%, Tommy Hilfiger offers upto 50% off, Pepe Jeans offers flat 40% off, name the brand and its on sale. I walked into a mall in Bangalore which has most of these Brands and the crowd in that mall was as though something was being distributed for free. As for the Levis store all I can say is that ‘All Hell Broke Loose”! </p><p align="justify">Say these promotional offers go on for another couple of weeks. What after that? Which sane person would buy a UCB shirt at INR 2500, after having seen UCB offering 70% discount. The premium image of a brand like UCB is surely dented. As for Tommy Hilfiger, I have no words. I doubt people would again ever pay INR 4000 for a shirt from Tommy Hilfiger after seeing them sell it at 50% off. What on earth were the Branding Specialists in these companies thinking?? </p><p align="justify">The premium brand image has come crashing down and hit the floor hard. Everyone did try to increase sales and cash in on increased purchases, but what about the intangible effect of these discounts on the premium brand image??? If they wanted increased sales and offered discounts to reach the masses, then why on earth are they still called Premium Brands? They should rather be in the category of mass market products!</p>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-38212326583472729082009-07-19T00:32:00.009+05:302009-07-23T12:01:39.911+05:30The Next Big Thing: Guitarist Tallan Noble Latz<div style="text-align: justify;">Well, its been a while since I've written a post. Guess I have to owe that too Poor Health and my Birthday Celebrations (11th July). But I was just browsing the internet today after quite sometime and I came across this video of an amazing kid called 'Tallan Noble Latz'. I couldn't stop myself from writing about him.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.bugslidedealers.com/_DSC6883ntman-press.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 166px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.bugslidedealers.com/_DSC6883ntman-press.gif" alt="Tallan Noble Latz" border="0" /></a>He is all of just 9 year's old. He is a kid in the US, who recently took part in the famous TV show called 'America's Got Talent' which incidently is the show that the Indian TV channel Star Plus copied blindly and made its own version called India's got talent (A Complete Rip Off).<br />Tallan Latz was born on September 22, 2009 to Carl and Doris Latz in the United States. He began playing acoustic guitar at the age four!!!! By the time he was five, a video of the legend himself Joe Satriani had a major impact on the boy and he declared "That's what I wanna to do".<br />At the age of eight, he played on-stage with performers the likes of Jackson Browne and Les Paul. He appeared on the Rachel ray show on January 21, 2009 and recently on the show 'America's got Talent'!<br />The first time I saw the video of him playing the guitar, all I could think off, is that this kid has got it in him to be the next guitaring legend after Kurt Kobain and Joe Satriani! What's more? His taste in music ranges from Joe Satriani to Led Zeppelin to Jimi Hendrix to Steve Vai to Bon Jovi to even Ludwig Van Beethoven. And his perfect attitude complimenting his guitaring skills would give him a 10/10.<br />There may be many who play real good music, but only a few who really feel music from their soul and they are the ones who make it big! This kid sure is promising!<br /><br />Here's the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZGX0aN55B8">Video</a> of the Kid performing at America's Got Talent:<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwEbK8NUvDZa5MGdSGIVKlub051nsXdzcseLpDSjN3-g7m3gGPPDGZi1xF4mECalpDGUQ1Ok4ZNWy5st3E_eA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-89295239007079419512009-07-03T01:29:00.006+05:302009-07-03T01:43:52.690+05:30“Terrorists are not born, they are made”“Terrorists are not born, they are made” is a saying that I’ve heard quite a number of times. All one needs is common sense to agree with that. But the reason I am writing this post is due to my concern on people trying to curb terrorism without paying attention to the influencing factors that make people terrorists. I for one feel its better to remove a tree from its roots rather than just chop it off superficially!<br /><p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHECzcMy3J0eN-IjueUoGiYICXyl73-B9TiKV3v1OPfVQ_QUFQJTEqcLDCmw9SBgozbHQGUIPPDZ1B7foHF5vEuNekSwFDc3VT2XfH6WF67OD5bxF-Wkw-YQH82lJ4cvmz_WDu3uuayw/s1600-h/img1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHECzcMy3J0eN-IjueUoGiYICXyl73-B9TiKV3v1OPfVQ_QUFQJTEqcLDCmw9SBgozbHQGUIPPDZ1B7foHF5vEuNekSwFDc3VT2XfH6WF67OD5bxF-Wkw-YQH82lJ4cvmz_WDu3uuayw/s200/img1.jpg" alt="Tariq Ahmad Dar" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353956357743078146" border="0" /></a>An instance worth mentioning is that of ‘Tariq Ahmad Dar’, the Kashmir model who was pursuing his career in Bangladesh as a model and actor. He was abducted by the Bangladeshi Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on charges of being a terrorist and linked to the Al-Qeada, after 6months in jail and continuous pressure from the media and various Human Rights’ Activists, he was finally released on account of insufficient evidence against him. In a documentary on NDTV, he mentioned how life has actually changed for him and how he cant be his normal self again after the abduction. He was kept for days together in an empty room with his eyes closed and no one would listen to what he had to say!</p> <p align="justify">Tariq has come back to India and is trying to live his normal life, which shows his mental and emotional strength. But not everyone can be a Tariq. This can prove lethal, as if the person is not mentally strong, he may loathe everyone and be hungry for revenge. The result is yet another one who strays into terrorism.</p> <p align="justify">We need to stop this from happening:</p> <ul><li> <div align="justify">Firstly by being careful while screening and in the investigation</div></li><li> <div align="justify">Secondly, treating the suspects as human beings and not as third world creatures</div></li><li> <div align="justify">Finally and most importantly by counselling people (especially those in the age group of 14-30) on how to choose the right path and the importance of having a clear conscience</div></li></ul> <p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/images/new-york-hindi-movie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 321px;" src="http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/images/new-york-hindi-movie.jpg" alt="New York" border="0" /></a></p><p align="justify">A movie that I watched last week called “New York” is also based on this very issue. But it brings out the happenings in the aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Centre crash. It shows how the Muslims were targeted and over 3000 suspected and taken for investigation, and about a year later around 1000 who were seen innocent were released. </p> <p align="justify">The movie is about three Muslims who were in the US after the 9/11. One of them a character called Sameer (played by actor John Abraham) was in detention for being a suspect (for clicking photographs of the WTC for his project at college), he was tortured and he ended up becoming a terrorist just to seek revenge. His best friend Omar (played by actor Neel Nitin Mukesh) tries to bring John Abraham back from the wrong path that he has chosen and the third Roshan (played by the versatile actor Irfan Khan) is a FBI agent who actually is trying to eradicate terrorism in order to remove the hatred mark of ‘Terrorists’ from over the Muslim Community!</p> <p align="justify">I should say a very well shot movie. One of the few Bollywood movies which has a very practical and apt ending. Kudos to actress Katrina Kaif (who plays John Abraham’s wife in the movie) for the superb display of her acting skills. John continues to win hearts of millions of fans with his killer looks and pretty descent acting. But a thumbs down for Neel Nitin Mukesh for his dismissal acting. On the whole I would rate the movie a 7/10!</p><p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/4406065/2/istockphoto_4406065-dove-of-peace-world-religions-includes-jpg-eps-ai-pdf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 380px;" src="http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/4406065/2/istockphoto_4406065-dove-of-peace-world-religions-includes-jpg-eps-ai-pdf.jpg" alt="Peace among Religions" border="0" /></a></p> <p align="justify">Apart from the movie, I feel we cannot generalize Muslim’s as terrorists just because a few terrorists are Muslims. We cannot have such a biased opinion just because of their association to one community. It would only be provoking them! Instead we should all join hands and stand together in these ‘Testing Times’ for the greater good of all.</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">“One may be from a different faith,</p> <p align="justify">Each of which is a different path to the almighty.</p> <p align="justify">Please don’t differentiate based on faith as it is not innate,</p> <p align="justify">For it will only make all of us history!”</p></blockquote>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064522428214223129.post-54899038786484060292009-06-29T14:39:00.014+05:302009-07-02T00:36:35.024+05:30Global Recession Recovery Team: India named Captain<article><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkU9vmrYven1WcBE0LSTRSLhNjEEu9_hMdYLUHbo4DkFB0QW_kTd5QpWl9IH6mV_5TjsAiONSK0XSUg0xBufyr8dGn-PGFZr-giR13t-Gxg8PiqHkbIYCdj0IKoXlfybPwTgSptjtPccc/s1600-h/Montek-Singh-Ahluwalia55.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkU9vmrYven1WcBE0LSTRSLhNjEEu9_hMdYLUHbo4DkFB0QW_kTd5QpWl9IH6mV_5TjsAiONSK0XSUg0xBufyr8dGn-PGFZr-giR13t-Gxg8PiqHkbIYCdj0IKoXlfybPwTgSptjtPccc/s200/Montek-Singh-Ahluwalia55.jpg" alt="Montek Singh Ahluwalia" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352676801207186274" border="0" /></a><br />“I think it is reasonable to assume the worst is over. We will now get back to more normal growth,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said about a week ago while addressing the press.<br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2w_CR8HY-xGHQMmZmvPccyUFjeSP-0bGnbx1L3U0EzBwEbWDmaTtSgxslQnai4C6dd9fTbUT3N7xsTLxuTShNddKH3p14MBmDleTfryDVhhyQAcknp2xTGI7kfl9WZa1xwgRcdG44jE/s1600-h/Anand-Sharma202.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2w_CR8HY-xGHQMmZmvPccyUFjeSP-0bGnbx1L3U0EzBwEbWDmaTtSgxslQnai4C6dd9fTbUT3N7xsTLxuTShNddKH3p14MBmDleTfryDVhhyQAcknp2xTGI7kfl9WZa1xwgRcdG44jE/s200/Anand-Sharma202.jpg" alt="Anand Sharma" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352675776906721042" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">“The prime minister is confident that we will be able to take it to 9 percent in the next 24 months. By and large our economy is stable and strong, and we in India have perhaps done better than others in this crisis. India has a sound regulatory framework”, Trade Minister Anand Sharma said about a week ago while he was in London</div><p align="justify"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The above two statements coming from two of the most apt people commenting about the Indian Economy is surely something to cheer about. I presume they are not just giving Indians a motivating speech but rather talking from actual data and facts. </p> <p align="justify">In fact, when you see the pace of expansion in the Indian Economy stabilizing in the first quarter of the this year at 5.8percent (as it was in the three preceding months) as compared to China which showed a drop in its GDP to 6.1percent from 6.8percent (owing to their dependence in overseas sales) in the same period it sure is a great sign of India’s $1.2trillion economy emerging from the worst global slump since the Great Depression.</p> <strong>Why India?</strong> <p align="justify">Paul R. Krugman, a Professor of Economics and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008 recently told how based on IMF’s new World Economic Outlook recessions caused by financial crisis typically end with export booms, which he feels is a disturbing results as it means that the driver for recovery will only be available if we can find another planet to export to.</p> <p align="justify">The above statement by Krugman could very well be the reason why India, this time around could just find itself in the midst of things with an equal chance to add its name of the noble few which may lead the next Global Charge (by providing the extra demand owing to increased consumption).</p><p align="justify"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7n2dBAJ78h0BIYwVq0J3IRZxJtftm6dYuEJ-vFDfcDhWd5XobmE3SfGU7yxIBIXhzyaemRkwprjw4VSvpdoslnSg8RmVXdxJKM09T850mWOI4jKgqQVB9wE6ale6dNGmy4OFtYuifvw/s1600-h/India.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 380px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik7n2dBAJ78h0BIYwVq0J3IRZxJtftm6dYuEJ-vFDfcDhWd5XobmE3SfGU7yxIBIXhzyaemRkwprjw4VSvpdoslnSg8RmVXdxJKM09T850mWOI4jKgqQVB9wE6ale6dNGmy4OFtYuifvw/s400/India.jpg" alt="World Pointing at India" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352674356472455282" border="0" /></a></p> <p align="justify">One may argue about the predominant role of developed economies, but the fact that they are either:</p> <ul><li> <div align="justify">Bogged down in the substantial quantities of debt that they desperately need to pay off, or </div></li><li> <div align="justify">Weighted down by those elderly populations who are weakening consumption growth and leading to export dependence (Germany, Japan etc)</div></li></ul> <p align="justify">may just give India the edge to lead the Global Economic Revival. India could actually be the country that supplies this extra demand required!</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">“So guess its the hour of realization,</p> <p align="justify">For India is the chosen nation”<br /></p></blockquote></article>Rajiv S Perumalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00098932420003441115noreply@blogger.com1