Who is monkeying around?

Vijay does his best to mimic origins of mankind. Tonakel Camp, Chennai. Oct 8 2005.

Agni

Tonakel Camp, Chennai Oct 8, 2005.

No Objection for a No Objection

Rs.10 K net. That's decent money, even if you calculate in $. I decided to drag my feet to the RTO's office and discovered some startling facts.

I was planning to move to Mumbai. Trouble began. The most trying of the questions I faced was: Should I sell my bike and buy another one in Mumbai?

“Yeah, that is better. I can sell away troubles with the notorious RTO. And I will get an all new bike. Sounds like a good idea.”

I calculated the costs. It costs Rs.10 K net (cash for a new bike – cash received on sale). That is big. And what I learnt was a bonus.

The Ayanavaram RTO is nearby. It took just ten minutes. When I got there, an impersonal-old-white-washed edifice sang “you don't belong here.” I looked around to figure out what I to do to get an “NOC” (No Objection Certificate). No instructions that could ease the pain of an amatuer govermnet-office-goer. And fewer in English or Hindi. Frustrating.

“Dude! If you can't be friendly, you have to face it too” and I went straight ahead to wake-up the first RTO-employee-like homosapien I could find and ask “How do I get an NOC?” After a few “this way”s and “that way”s later, I find a gentleman who told me that the forms I should use are sold outside “near the koil.” There comes the first one. The first thing that you need in a government office is sold outside the office. And what I found seemed like an idea for a good B-plan.

I come outside and saw a thriving “RTO forms” industry. That chap has RTO forms, a public telephone and a kirana shop all in one. Revenue productivity (RP – whether you count in $/head or $/sq foot) will rival with that in Outsourcing industry. Not only is the margin comparable (a rough calculation shows he earns more than 35% gross margin), but he seems to understand his customers better. I get adhesive and a stapler free (on a use-and-return basis only) if I buy forms from him. He also gives you free advice. “What is the form for that?” or “Is this the right way to fill this?” No problem. He has all the answers. I later found the adhesive and stapler were loss leaders. The shopkeeper was an agent too. He first gives the adhesive and the stapler. He then offers to work for you. A good back loaded revenue model! RP estimates hit the roof.

After a marathon form filling exercise, I go and stand in a line. After 20 minutes, I reach the counter and the guy inside a jail like structure asked me to meet an inspector to get his 'initial'.

I ask him politely “Why the hell am I not told earlier?”
He knows the trick “I don't know. Go talk to him. Next..”

I 'go talk to him' and now comes the shock. If you want to get an NOC from RTO, you have to go the police station in Arumbakkam (that is 20 minutes away) and get an NOC from them. Gawd! Give me patience. It seemed like the circular reference error in Excel.

I did go the next day to the police station and got an NOC two days later. Now that I saw some progress, this is what I think of getting stuff done in a government office.

1. Along with all the documents, you need to carry patience to a government office.

2. All activity takes time. Not the night marish – months or years – but days. And they usually deliver in the promised time.

3. You don't have to grease any one. At least if all your documents are in place and your case is genuine. But the normal grease of a friendly smile will go a long way to ease the process. If you can't get stuff done, talk to higher authorities and ask for help. They are willing to help and explain.

4. Government works!

Heavenly Canvas

From atop a boat - Backwaters near Alleppey, Kerala. April 2005.

Who Am I?

At the entrance to the library, Vivekananda Puram, Kanya Kumari. April 2005.

Gandhiji's Statue, Sabarmati Ashram

Sabarmati Ashram. Ahmedabad. October 2004.

Festive Sun Set

Injambakkam. Chennai. Sept 18 2005. Behind me was Bay of Bengal.

Cool Greeting Card

I made this simple card for my friend and (obviously) I loved it! September 04, Hyderabad.

Of writing skills, personality and actors

“Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots. The reasons we express ourselves as we do, or fail to express ourselves because of “writer's block,” are partly buried in the subconscious mind.” - William Zinsser in On Writing Well

Scary words. The author tells us that you can't express beyond yourself. What you are imposes serious limitations on what you can write. (Unlike filmi heroines who can express themselves so well without a clue of the language a movie is made. Telugu movie industry (rather audience?) are hardest hit.)

Is this true? I don't want to believe this. I am more inclined to believe that those who have good writing skills are merely better trained. (Like Kamal Hassan may not know telugu well. But he knows acting!)

And it seems more like a cap and not writing skills are a sort of “linear function” of your personality. Is the converse (who are able to express themselves have good personalities) true? (This should mean Divya Bharati has great personality!)

Work-life balance

What you want

What you get

Special Thanks to "Golden Florist", Kilpauk.

Top: Sept 4, 2005, Kilpauk. Bottom: April 10-15, 2005, near Rama's temple, Bhadrachalam.

Going Beyond Cost Cutting To Value Creation In Offshoring

Going Beyond Cost Cutting To Value Creation In Offshoring
Offshoring is here to stay, and as most analysts point out, the ‘Gold Rush’ is just getting started.

The actual articles does little justice to the heading and the preview line. Stay tuned for more action on the value creation and capturing front.

Happy Vinayaka Chavithi!

Picture - Sept 07, 2005. Vinayaka's antique idol collected at Jew Town, Cochin. April, 2005.

Good Monument, Bad Photography

I was split whether to post this one. This is Kutub Minar. It's a
fine piece of art. No doubt. But this picture is a bad example of
photography. Kutub Minar, Sept 2004.

A Brain Wave on How to Look for Your Soul Mate

Lazy Sunday afternoon. The make do blanket curtain on my window flaps vigorously as the breeze battles to enter. I pin the curtain with my head as I lean on the wall below the window on my Kurl-on mattress. The flapping has gone down but the auto noise outside my room spoils the perfect mood brought forth by “o sathi re” emanating from my laptop. The breeze is now restive to get inside and throws it weight on my curtain. But I won't let it go.

I desperately want to nail down the melogy humming in my mind all afternoon. I can't remember the pestering song. The lone clue was that Kishore Kumar sang it. Raaga.com has 23 screenfulls of Kishore Kumar songs. The hums multiplied as I prodded through the list that had “C A T cat mane billi” and the like a myriad times. The song is still elusive. Despite annoying “X O O M xoom daat caam” league ads, Raaga.com is still the best site for Hindi, Telugu and Tamil melodies.

(Caution: paragraphs below are male centric)

For once, I thought matrimonial websites changed the marriage broking business like Raaga.com did to listening to melodies. No way. Four to five of my-age friends were frustrated when I asked them their own tryst with bride hunt. A friend wondered “I have been looking out from long. Where have all those girls gone?” My question is, are you doing the search right? Particularly if you are looking for a well educated girl, which is a rare breed in India.

It takes two to tango even in the pseudo arranged marriages of these days. If you think you hooked up to the latest fad in the matrimony business and the search has to be easy because the Net has changed it all, wake up! The crowd that invades the Net does not mirror that in the brick and mortar world. Y! chat rooms and the blogs tell you the story. Most of the net inhabitats (in southern India at least) are twenty something males. Not the 'decision-maker'-parent of a bride-to-be. Many girls' “profiles” on the matrimonial websites are written promptly by girls themselves disguised as their parents or relatives. The decision-makers, for all practial purposes, are among the most computer and internet illeterate groups. If you put up your profile on the yet another matrimonial website and are awaiting a response, good luck.

Market place mismatch (I just put a tag on what I described above) sure has it role to play making matrimonial sites ineffective but the importance of the decision itself forces the parents to look for reliable sources of good grooms. They seek advice from their friends, go to marriage bureaus, and advertise in specific newspapers (in Andhra, it's Eenadu and in TN – The Hindu).

So the strategy for a successful search is not very different from what they teach you in marketing classes in b-schools. Look for the decision maker. Go do a song and dance in places where the decision maker goes when he/she is looking for your “product” so you can grab their attention and move your agenda forward.

If you choose to advertise in a newspaper, do it right. I gave an ad in a newspaper giving just my email id. It evoked luke warm response if not a dismal one. I readvertised after a couple of weeks with my telephone number and my cell phone was flooded with numerous calls. In majority of the cases, girl's parents don't use the internet or email. Period.

Well the third reason why internet does not work is that internet sites fail to capture the information that either the parents would like to give or the information that groom's parents look out for. [Without getting into ethics of it,] Wealth related information and dowry seem to figure among the first calls between the parties [unfortunate, but true]. Websites do not “capture” this information and hence provide partial information for “decision-making” (whether to contact the other party).

If you are doing the search yourself or if you are away in a foreign country, you are likely to rely excessively on the matrimonial sites. I hope the gyan given above will give you the wherewithall to get back into the game. Good luck.

Open Up. The World Is Waiting.

Shore Temple Park, Mahabalipuram. Aug 28, 2005.

Life is Not a Movie

No. You can't  ride a bike on a beach like they do in a movie.

Discover yourself!

Through photography. Aug 28, 2005

Destiny

Yes. It's round the corner. Always.

The Web

In the rocks protecting The Shore Temple, Mahabalipuram, Aug 28, 2005

My Chota Shahar

Confessions of an Enterpreneur!

Good read:

[...]

It had been six months since I had read a business plan. And I missed it. I missed it real bad. I salivated when the Wall St. Journal driver came down my block… only to skip my house. My wife had a block on our cable TV- no more MSNBC and it was no better on the Internet, I couldn't access Bloomberg.

[...]

She made me return to Entrepreneurs Anonymous (EA). I had stopped going to my meetings. I had beaten it or so I thought. But the truth is, we never do. I was just like everyone else in EA. I matched the profile perfectly. 80% of members have a relapse within their first six months. I was now another data point confirming that statistic.

My next stop is the 28-day regimen at the Warren Buffett Center for Recovering Entrepreneurs at White Sulfur Springs. I wonder if they will give me my old room back. Wish me luck.

http://www.heshreinfeld.com/columns/confessionsentrepreneur.html

What have you googled today?

What have you googled today? Tom Austin says google could be useful to show "googled" (valuable) caller information when someone calls you.

Googling
Posted By: Tom Austin, GVP & Gartner Fellow

The word is now part of our vocabulary, or so says the popular press as well as Wikipedia. It's a verb that means to perform a Web search on a person's name. Twenty-somethings google each other before they go out. Salespeople google their clients to get insights and gems to use on sales calls. Patients google their doctors, and investors google their stockbrokers (if they use any - something they are far less likely to do these days).

So why can't you google someone down the hall - in your own company - and find something meaningful to your business activities? Why can't you google the people from finance you have a meeting with in two hours? Why can't you google your company's transaction history when a happy customer calls up and wants to chat about an order she just placed with a different division of your company? Why can't your voice-over-IP system google all incoming calls and match up caller-ID information with everything and anything related to the caller?

Isn't it about time we started working on figuring out how to help people inside our own companies find structured and unstructured information about people and relationships between people? Not just by navigating a set of fields populated by a "dumb" human resource management system, but by intelligently probing for value in information (often tacit knowledge) that IT systems could crawl day in and day out - systems ranging from e-mail, through file servers, to content management and production.

http://hpw.blog.gartner.com/blog/index.php?blogid=3

Red Flower and the Sea

Vizag, March '05

Standing Tall

Rayar Gopuram, Mahabalipuram Aug 28, '05

Park ho to aisee

 

Shore Temple park, Mahabalipuram, Aug 28, 2005

Bunty and Babli: The Face of the Current Generation?

Choti Choti Shaharon se
Kaali bore duparahon se
Hum to jhola utake chale
[...]
Hum Chale, Hum Chale
Oye Raam Chand re
[...]
Dhadak Dhadak
Mujhe bulaye re

Are chores of peope who went out of their 'choti sharar's for education or work playing “Bunty Aur Babli”? The story of a young lad trying to break free from the clutches of a small town mentality and resources to reach a wonderland of opportunities that will make him “someone” strikes a chord with me. I am sure there are hundreds out there who come from a similar background as I am–some small town.. went umpteen places to study and then is working in some city. Are we making a mistake (“Hum Galat The”)?

Let me get the movie out of the way first. The story assumes honesty = poverty and respect minus comforts. It also assumes Naukri = poverty. These are no longer true thanks to the IT revolution and Mr. “NRN” Murthy and Premji in particular (but the script writers, directors etc. could be from that generation where it was practically true).

Bunty and Bubli make their day mostly out of theft and cheating. So the story is not applicable to majority of the Bunties and Bablies I am referring to. But it raises intriguing questions.

What is our (bunty aur babli ka) goal in life? We seem to be ceaselessly planning our career for the next big step. How long will it last? What are we breaking free from? And what is our destination? Do we just want to be “someone important”? Will the enthu last till we actually achieve something? Or are we selfish to stop trying soon after we are “someone important”?

And what about our choti shehar? Do we have any responsibility towards our hometowns? If every one uses our home-towns only till we can “break-free,” are the towns ever going to improve? I don't think I have ever done anything to my hometown. But I have rejoiced when my hometown paper wrote about me “Some one from our town made it!” I have never felt heavier about my hometown. My hometown actually is a hot place (55 degrees in summer) with a declining population. But still it is the place where I grew up. It provided me with a place to live, school to study and a job to my father so he can feed the family.

Can our towns survive their own “brain-drain”?

Inspiration:
Small town India of Bunty aur Babli
Rama Bijapurkar
June 21, 2005

Tower II

ISB SV-II Tower March '05

Kutub Minar

Kutub Minar Sept '04

Sivamani 9 8 4 8 0 2 2 3 3 8

Probably the only movie with a cell phone number in its title. Not surprisingly, cell phones get a lot of prominence in the movie.

First, positives-Intriguing music, well-knit over all story, couple of good songs, scenes from Kerala and finally, Asin.

The 'Ilaya raja'-like background (and title) music raises many questions in your mind and is probably best suited to listen to in an introspection session on a beach. The movie starts showing waves on a beach with a fair share of the sounds waves make. One of very few movies I replayed titles because it has great music to go with it. A couple of songs (Yenatiki, Mona Mona) are decent.

Overall story resembles that in “Never Been Kissed.” It starts well with the "second heroine" (Rakshita) finding a bottle on the Visakhapatnam beach in which the heroine (Vasanta-Asin) sends her parting message to the hero before they part for the next couple of years. Rakshita looks at the message and raises several questions. “Who wrote the message? Why did the “sender” have to put it in a bottle?” I guess it is a printed matter in Malayalam with the message in Telugu. “Why two languages? Did the couple met since?” Rakshita is the link between the newspaper that publishes the story and the couple. The story is a run away hit with its readers getting ready to “pranalaina istam” for the couple.

The story intertwines the past and the present revealing why the Telugu speaking hero stays in Kerala, how the couple gets together, why the heroine disappears suddenly, etc. Many parts of the movie are shot in Kerala. The camera man does a decent job with capturing Kerala's beauty but no where does Kerala come alive. It is at best an average job. I guess even if he had done a good job may be that will still not liven up the entire movie. [Putting best ppl in one or two jobs will not make the product a winner. You can only maximise locally. We need best guys in all speres of a company to multiply results]

Asin – did a decent job. I was pleasantly surprised to see her name in the titles cos I did not know that she acted in this movie until then. Her last movie I watched was Gharshana. It was a great movie. She played a person with good looks, great education and a teacher in a school. Seemed like a killer combination to me. [Had that lady come alive from the movie, I would have proposed to her ;) Alas she may not be as smart in the real world!] I watched that movie twice and wanted to watch it another time. I dont think the CDs are out yet.

The movie starts well with those questions gripping your attention. And then it goes on a slippery slope till the end. The second half is just another dumb telugu movie with patched up sequence, ill-timed songs, mandatory “fightings” and a couple of songs aimed at “masses.” That is all. It is just another movie.

Why do directors fail to understand the essence of a successful movie? If you do an average job on all fronts, it becomes just that – an average job. Only those movies will be successful that 'push the frontier' and be an 'outlier.' Otherwise, you are going with luck. Goodluck!

Fire for the belly

Marina Aug 15, '05. Credits: Archana

Sunrise on Besant Nagar Beach

Red Fort isn't that red!

Red Fort Sept '04

Jantar Mantar

Jantar Mantar Sept '04

It pours cats and dogs in Chennai

KTDM

Kothagudem, Oct '04

Sky

Tankbund, Hyderabad

This picture was taken on Tankbund, Hyderabad on my first day out with a camera. Birla Mandir on the backdrop makes photo special. To make up for lack of a tripod, I pinned the camera on to a telephone pole and clicked this one.

Sept '04

Guessing time again!

Aug '05.

Delhi-India Gate

July 27, 2005

Patala Ganga

The best mom and the best child

My bhabhi and my nephew. 31 July '05. Credits: power cut.

Water Umbrella

Water Umbrella. Kochin April, '05

Rashtrapathi Bhavan-India Gate in the backdrop

India gate in the background. New Delhi, September '04

Ceiling

ISB, Hyderabad. March '05.

Cochin beach

Cochin, Kerala. April 22-25, 2005.

More beauty from ISB

Sometime during Apr'04 to Apr'05