Random Thoughts

It's been while more than 1 year I have updated the Blog. There are few points who run into mainstream thoughts urging me to type down them in blog. Alas, the Twitter phenomenon has taken over and the thoughts are poured into 140 character message. Not sure whether this is right thing. Here are some topics I want to Blog about and will try to achieve atleast 5 more by end of 2012.

• India's so called Soft Power to capture worl thru entertaining precisely Bollywood is suppressing other language movies in India.
• Humility is not the in-thing
• Live in Other's Point of View
• Chief Crying Officer - high profile job in channels with reality shows

and many more!

Come back soon for new post!

Happy New Year 2011

Wishing Everyone a Happy New Year. May 2011 brings out more joy and  peace around us.

Trying to force a resolution to write regular blogs in 2011. Atleast one in a month.


Another area of resolution is about work-life balance with more family time. God give more peace and happiness to one and all.

Social Media - Powers and Misuses

Everyone is concerned, angered, excited, curious about the leaks happening all over the world. I am also concerned about the leak in my restroom pipe. Ok that's different story in which I called up the plumber to fix it :)

I was more surprised and felt disappointed by the mainstream media handling Radia Tapes leak story barring airtimes with denial of the wrong doings. They were even trying to take cover under the ethos of Journalistic manipulation. They put out some jargons of journalism like String along the source to get more info.

My concern is all about transparency and bold journalism with guts to attack your own house even if it is built in glass to expose wrong doings, otherwise you should close the shop / leave the job and go and work do some desk job in 9 to 5 environs without fame and money.

On a discussion on this topic, someone said, fame and money bring ego to any individual. I am not sure about it because some of the celebrated journalists have toiled hard day night for years to be recognized so the ego part is not correct. But surely insecurity has been built in. It has become rat race to claim #1 spot in reporting.

Every channel exposed various scams but some channels have breaking news "After XXXX expose, Govt acts tough"..

Anyways coming to the tittle of blog... various bloggers, tweeters were persistent to discuss about this radia tapes issue to trigger some sense of responsibility to get some channels to discuss on the matter. Think about it, without media, CWG Scam would have been buried and now Social Media made sure that mediagate is not buried quietly.

But again, there are some elements start abusing individuals with so much ranting by calling names to demean some of the people noted / listed in the issue. There needs to be maturity and restraint on commenting such issues.

I think people active in Social Media needs to remember this line

With Power Comes Responsibility

Maybe this holds true for Media by large extent

Football World Cup - 2010.. Time to Get into Groove

Here it is.. the World Cup Football Carnival in South Africa is starting in 2 days time (June 11) and guess most of Soccer Crazy nations will come to standstill.

I would like to see new play makers, stunning goal saves, aggressive build-up, solid defences, etc and also the drama behind false fouls and the crowds with the south african trumpet which has been a concern for few visiting teams.

But this time around, I am going to miss Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Cafu, Ballack, Beckham, Raul. I always admire Carlos' cover up of the whole football ground with agility and also the high powerful free kicks or long passes. Man he was like mean machine, always on the prowl and moving around swiftly. It is always a treat to watch.

Similarly Ronaldhinho / Ronaldo has the flair for their passes, attacking versatility, beautiful way of tribbling around the defenders. Gonna miss those even though we still have Messi, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, etc.

Ever since Luzio came into defending position for Brazil, I admire the way he charges from their half to opponent half with the ball. The long steps with the ball and he has the ability to make the pass at right time. When I saw that for first time, I thought he is being over confident, but later understood that his ability to be a great playmaker and good defence player as well. On the defenders, other eye catching guy is none other than Azurri skipper Camavarro. He has his own style and man.. he just goes about the job and get the ball from opponent.

I think one common thing football does is to keep people engage in TV for full duration of the tournament.

My Final 4 is Brazil, Germany, Spain and England. From there as always Brazil is the winner.

General Updates.. May 2010.. happening month

It's been happening month of May.. as I had some few important dates to cherish in my life.

Moving to new project

After six years in the program supporting critical business application for our organization, I moved out to another group within the same company to part of the team that supports BI tools for an important client.

Apprehensive while joining the previous team (yeah now it's prev team :( ) in 2004 June end but the team which gave me platform to showcause my capabilities, which may not be in cutting edge technologies or innovation, but gradual understanding of my capability, my business acumen, managerial jargons or practical management actions, etc have indeed blossomed and made me a rounded IT professional. These years made me moving laterally into managerial roles coupled with technical mentoring and understanding the realities of big organization and the mantra of being agile even when you are large.

In early 2006, we had to start building a team with varied skill sets; What an experience it turned out to be. The team was built in quick time as the faster absorption of the work was vital factor in that time. Every individual came onbaord was unique but to our fortunate times, they jelled with the team in jiffy.

I miss our coffee talk sessions in evening as 15+ people troop into cafeteria and take coffee/ tea / juices for health consicious and sit on water pipes in a long queue. Those sessions were major ice-breakers and helped the team understand each other activities in more informal way.

The best part of the team is that leadership was transparent in any aspect of running the team. The team was first to know the strategies, objectives and policy decisions whichever can be shared with the team. I felt privileged that I was in middle of the leaderhsip and individuals of the team. Some say these roles are like punching bag but I wasn't privy to experience that.

There were ups and downs but the team understood the realities of cost optimization, agility, efficiency and also almost all in the team grew out of their roles to be higher platform than when we started the team.

To fulfil one's wishlist or ambitions, you need a change and I had to take decision of moving into different and more challenging role than the current one. The decision was well supported by all in team and they were happy that I am pursuing my wish and not the forced change in some of the cases.

The guys were with heavy heart while doing the farewell but gave me heavy gift box and it was great to receive it from the longest companion of the team Mahesh.

Surely LSS, as we call ourselves is a rocking team and happy that I am part of the people that built with open, frankness, joy with so many jolly good moments of team outing, lunches, crisis situations, major releases, et al. I am sure the super cool Mahesh and team will go places if not in the same place but whatever they pursue. I hope to be a good member of the new team and contribute significant to the success of the team.

Grahapravesh Pooja

We did small family gathering in our new flat booked and did grahapravesh (aka house warming). It was hectic few days of preparations as ever supporting bros and sisters, cousins arrived only on previous day. But I could pull out with help of local friends. The priest was cool and informative even though there is language setback since he is fluent in Kannada, Telugu and Hindi and our family are into Tamil, English. I have to do the translator job even while in hotseat. Attached in the picture of the pooja.

Before you ask, we plan to have elaborate house warming function once we move into new apartment as the building has good open terrace with provisions for gazebo, seating arrangements, etc.

Engagement of cousin..

One of the happiest news in 2010, that my cousin could finally say that he liked someone and we all family went ahead in quick moves to confirm the alliance. The engagement was done on May 26.

With the action time coming in all 3 updates, hope the coming months will be more exciting and challenging.

Tailpiece: The Week starting May 23 is eventful one with accomplishing so many things, couldn't when Sunday dawned and am already in dusk of Saturday writing this update.

Dec '09 and Jan '10 - Memories (Places) Re-visited - Cherished / Teary Moments

As a starting point, this post is pending one since late December, but fortunately I delayed so that I can add more memories into this post.

Early December 2009, I booked a trip to hill station so that I can spend some days of my two week break from office. Suddenly my younger sis and brother-in-law told that I should visit them since the hill station is nearby. So I had to revisit the plans and made reservation. The other motivation to visit my sis family is that the town Pollachi where they stay is linked with my schooling. I did my elementary schooling (3-5) in Lourdes Matriculation School, Pollachi and our dwelling was in the Official Residence provided by our father's office.

I can go on writing about the house we stayed as it was sprawling house with big garden, front open space, 2 garages with 8 Guava trees, few Papaya ones, with one big kodikkaipuli fruit looks like curled tamarind literally means Vine Tamarind, trying hard to get the english or botanical name of it. But this post is not for this, will do detailed blog on this house.

I landed in Pollachi early morning 6 AM and straight went to my sister's home. My original intention was to hire a vehicle and to see my old school, our house, then Aiyappa temple, few of by-lanes still I remember where I go and meet my classmates and spend most part of the days.

But due to my over enthusiastic watching of ghat road section from Mysore to Sathy and losing sleep for few hours in night, I over slept during the day and suddenly realised that it is almost evening. I sneaked out of my sister's place as they were planning for different trips. I hired an Auto Rickshaw (3-Wheeler) and told him where I all intend to go. He was surprised and gave me a smile which was worse than a stare to indicate my madness.

I went near LMS and alas the school looked same atleast the block near the gate where my classes were located. But the surrounding is full of concrete jungle different from open fields and some maize fields while we were studying. Then I told the auto driver, it is almost 2 decades that I have visited my old school, then he apologetically acknowledged my enthusiasm.

As it was X-max holiday season, the school was closed and I didn't have chance to see students coming out of the school. I never had urge to get into school even though auto guy said he can get me in for stroll.

Then I asked him to take me into our old house.

One thing about these official quarters are that, they are in prominent place of the town / city and my experience has been always that we stayed in big houses with one or two rooms kept free and locked. All the houses had open spaces or garden both in front and back of the houses. Again digressing... :)

Man.. the house is not changed much, but again shy to venture in, looked from outside and a early teen boy came out with basket ball in his hands. I suddenly went into Autograph mode (term / slang inspired by recent Tamil movie about childhood memories) and remembering how I used to run from our gate to portico with a ball and practice bowling. On those days, somehow I felt, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham were running at least a kilometer before delivery a ball.

I then rushed back to sister's place and joined them for temple visit and market visit. I searched near bus stand for Metro bakery where we all used to come for coconut bun and cup of tea, I mean when I was in 3rd or 4th :). The coconut bun used to be divine in taste, but unlucky me couldn't find and then I asked the local who was taking us to that shop said it is moved to different place. Time changes things.

Next day we started off to Munnar, a hill station with full of tea gardens and water bodies. The again old memories kicked in.. Continued in next blog.. too much of typing in single window for a day :)

Embarassing Post

I have deleted my previous post.. Too much embarassing but it revealed that few of my family (siblings / niece / nephews) are reading the posts. It triggered bit of low moments with so much of phone call. Hence removed it.