Hit me!

Am looking forward to 2008. And if you are gonna be a part of it watch out for this space. The gut feeling is that this year is gonna rock my socks out. Why? ... well keep reading this space for that all through next year.

oh sweet 2007
Enjoyed myself in Gurgaon, saw probably the best idea in the Indian startup space and interacted with some really talented guys all through. Found out the do's and don't of a startup all over again, got me reminiscing about QB all over again. Then came off to join what I think is probably the best opportunity within MS and other MNC's. Professionally have pushed forward on the technical as well as behavorial side, but am still a frank jack :) Amazingly I still keep running into people who think I should keep my mouth open rather than shut.
Personally the year has been beyond comparison. Dad's health has improved beyond our wildest wishes, all thanks to the new entrant to our family, my sister's son Joshua Thomas Sequeira. Many of our childhood friends too had kids, actually all of them had kids this year and the building in Mumbai was having the "good-news" all through the year :)
And ofcourse the other things like new friends and revisiting some old ones. Some beautiful conversations and some gorgeous smiles and all those little things made life a bit more interesting. It all made for a smacking year.

Now bring on the next 365 baby!

Where's me moolah gone?

If I had shed weight as fast as the BSE Sensex did in the past few weeks I'd be swaying with the wind right now. What hell is happening on Dalal Street ? Well I was predicting a massive correction but even I did not expect it to be at this pace. I have lost 30% off my stock value in the past 2 days without even trading. Seems like there is some Harshad Mehta at play here or these funds and investment houses are playing the markets in unison. Come on Mr Damodaran save us retail investors from the wrath of these mammoths.

Taazaa Khabbar

This is getting me really excited. Cisco has announced Cisco I-Prize. This is a huge initiative by Cisco with the winning team getting to share a sign-on bonus of 25,000USD followed by having Cisco actually invest millions into your idea as an emerging technology over the next few years.

So if you have it in you, give it a shot. And if you wanna collaborate, get in touch.

Read more here

Shooting Stars and Diwali

Well that theory about the wishes and shooting stars sure as hell didn't come true for me. I guess that works only for American citizens... hehe.

Well its that time of the year again. For some time now the sound of loud explosions does not cause fear and the smell of our desi gunpowder is all over the place, right from dusk till dawn, yeah it starts at dusk! The stars are outnumbered by the festive rockets and lightning flowerpots and smooth harmony persists in the mass hysteria at your friendly neighborhood sweets shop. Everyone is headed home to spend time with family and the mood is all so cheery and happy. Everyone's purses are being emptied by their parents, children, siblings or a long lost friend and no-one is complaining. Its pouring in emails and everyone's "online status" reads a greeting or two.

So I too am headed to join in the celebrations and here's wishing all of you guys a very Happy Diwali. Be it my friends from Andheri, Matunga, Vashi, State College, Bangalore, Gurgaon or Hyderabad. Life has taken me many places but I'd swear by the sweat on my brow that there is just no place like home, especially during festival time.

ps. so what if I am a Christian, the sweets are just as delicious for me as they are for you ;)

Shooting Star

Guess what! Saw my first shooting star yesterday night, in hyderabad. Made me realise that its never too late for anything to happen in life and neither is anything impossible. Yeah I did make a wish, a small one.

Species LandLord Invertebrate

Out of the necessity of travelling outside Mumbai for my job I have always had to rent out apartments for my survival in various cities. Now that I am in Hyderabad I have come to the conclusion that where ever you go the genus Landlord Invertebrate is a direct descendant of the greedy overlords that our ancestors thought were slayed along with the dragons.

Here are some of the peculiar traits of these species. I hope that these will help you identify these specimens and stay clear of their path.
1. Greed - While this is a feature of every animal I have to say that landlords are way more greedier. I have been working for the past 5 years in the industry and even I cant expect a 10% increase yoy every year. That combined with the inflation rate that is at least 5% every year how can anyone expect a rental increase of 10-15% every year ? That too without any maintenance being done on the property.

2. False Claims - Every freaking landlord advertises his house as near a school, hospital, grocery store, IT park and mall. They will always say that this is just a stones throw away, while the reality is that there is stones and muck everywhere on the way to these places however close they are from the apartment. More ever once you occupy the place you can forget anything to be repaired by this species. They will always say that it will be fixed but if you wait for it to happen you might as well be without it. Yeah but if you say that you will fix it and cut the cost from the month's rent you can at least expect a quick reply from the species.

3. Sexual Discrimination - I have always noticed that the rentals for single girls are always better, cleaner, cheaper and aplenty. And in 100% of these places the landlord always likes to have a "friendly" conversation with his tenants on a daily basis.

4. No Bachelors or Family preferred - This is the most irritating problem that is hampering me from enjoying my bachelorhood. These specimens always prefer families as tenants for whatever reason. Bachelors are seen as rowdy creatures that don't need adequate housing. Now weren't they bachelors ever?

5. Pesky Rules and Regulations - Now if you manage to find someone who doesn't mind having bachelors as tenants then that specimen comes up with his list of rules and regulations. No friends, no drinks, no smoking, no girls, no loud music and the crap continues. Now you charge us such filthy high rentals and still feel that it is your prerogative to decide on how we live our lives. Gimme a break.


To all the creatures of the Landlord Invertebrate species I wish you all the harm in the world. May you face extinction and may your life be as miserable and as crappy as the things that you do upon your tenants.

Remember that your existence is because of your tenants and not the other way around.

My middle finger to you all!!! @#$%^!

NRI Theory

The dream of every individual is to own his/her own house sometime in their lives. Considering the ever reducing life spans of our cosmopolitan lives we would like to think that this event happens sooner rather than later in our busy lives. We find it as a great accomplishment when we manage to go ahead and get that home loan and buy a house even though the former is at an obnoxiously inflated rate of interest, leading us to pay nearly twice the actual amount of our dream house.

Now lets observe the situation around us. In most desirably habitable places the apartments are all sold out even before the first floor slabs are done with. However when the whole building is ready to be occupied no one is in the apartments. Who the hell are the people who bought these apartments at such ridiculous prices and can afford not to live in them. Let me introduce the culprits - the dearly beloved N.R.I. who seems to be earning so many truckloads of money that even though they have no intention of returning back home they will almost surely go ahead and invest their money on some real estate out here, leading to a surge in prices and ruining the dreams of the regular MIG Indian aka myself.

Now many of them will cribb their asses off telling me that they are actually contributing to the great Indian economy by pushing in their valuable dollars into the mill. Gimme a break yaar, if you want to really contribute non-zealously to the growth of the country while you earn a hefty sum abroad do so via some charitable institutions or maybe the capital markets or maybe some India centric investment funds.

If nothing else atleast wait till I manage to afford myself a decent 2bhk!

Quitting Guavus

Have put in my papers at Guavus Networks. Why? Hmmm.... read here
Where? ....Am moving out to Microsoft to work with their VSTT group. More on that once I get some info on what I can disclose about my work there:)
Cheers

Gori Chamdi - Reader's Digest Joy.

After a really long time I happened to pick up a copy of the Reader's Digest this month. Luckily for me there was a new additional supplement called Reader's Digest Joy - for free, along with the issue. Super! I reader the editor's (Mohan Sivanand) note which read, and I quote,

"The Indian edition of the Reader's Digest reached out to more than seven lakh urban women, which is more than the combined reach of all the top Indian women's magazines" ....
"We decided to reach out further with this first issue of Reader's Digest Joy, aimed at our women readers"... blah blah blah.

Oh what a wonderful thought Mr. Sivanand. Since you are so very much in touch with such a large diaspora of the Indian feminine society can you please tell me the reason you chose to stick a pic of a brunette chick on the front cover of your oh so Indian "Joy" ? Total humbug.

This crap is very evident in all our desi publications with blatant neglect of copyright and sticking in pics taken from just about anywhere and mostly of foreigners, sometimes doing crap totally unrelated to the article too. Why cant you stick in some good desi kuris in there. See the recent flurry of sweetness in the Times of India, with pictures of the hip chicks goings for admissions to colleges and some doing boat rides with their families. I wonder who that dame was on the boat ride, very beautiful, had that Mumtaz kinda look in hair and eyes with a 21st century bod to melt ya down. Anyways I digress what is the infatuation with white flesh that we desis seem to have. Come on take a look at the beauty around ya isn't that good enough. If not, go home and get a spanking from your mom right now!

Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to hold true to one’s convictions and ideals while facing down the bureaucracy that inverts entrepreneurship’s fundamental premise of service. – Dr. Elliot McGucken from his lecture, “Hero’s Journey Entrepreneurship.”

Yatra.com impresses

I recently attempted to purchase 4 tickets from Delhi to Srinagar, for a friend of mine . While scanning through the various travel portals out there yatra.com was offering a good deal. We immediately went on to purchase the tickets. However I had to fill out the lengthy personal details of all the 4 travellers. When I completed the form and hit the submit button the site claimed that the tickets I was trying to book were no longer available :(. Worse still it also mentioned that since the credit card was precharged for the tickets I would see a deduction on my card and it would be reverted at the earliest. This ofcourse got me all fumed up especially since I had a hefty bill from the previous month itself. I just thought I'd wait for a day or two and see what happenes and this is what happened.

The very evening this occured I get a call from their customer care rep. detailing and apologizing for what occured. He went on to ask me if I still needed to book the tickets so that he could check and let me know whats available. I said I didnt need them anymore. He then specifically told me that the amount debited from my card would be credited back within 3-5days.

Now thats customer service. Keep up the good work yatra.com. You have my vote for splendid customer care. Thanks

Update: Can you believe it. I actually got my refund back in 5 days, as promised.

Jay Walking Rudy Giuliani

I just read this article about the comedy show at the republican presidential debates starring New York's ex-mayor and now a Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani.

This is typical Jay Walking material. It always stuns me to find out the sheer lack of basic common knowledge in Americans. For nearly a decade now they have been facing the ire of extremists and fundamentalists from the middle east who have openly proclaimed war on their nation on the singular premise that the "infidels", aka the Americans, have infiltrated and occupied their holy land, ie the middle east beginning from the Kuwaiti occupation of American troops.

Now this has been shouted off the rooftops by these terrorists. A simple withdrawal of troops from the middle east would nip the menace right at the bud. If this is done these terrorist organizations will cease to have any reason for existence and if nothing else their sources of funding and ability to recruit new blood will definitely drop to minuscule levels.

The fact the Rudy Giuliani had no clue about this, even though he has been riding the high wave with the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that the crowd cheered at his dumb explanations is even more comical. How about some common sense courses for the American curriculum. Try being a good global citizen before attempting to be a global superpower.

Technorati Tags: Rudy Guiliani, Terrorism, America, Jay Walking

Freedom of Expression - Do we have it in India?

It has been a shameful spate of events occurring at Vadodara. The thugs of the VHP, lead by a particular Neeraj Jain, who claim to be representatives of the majority of the country have vandalized and illegally imprisoned a college student. All this hooliganism based on their restricted and uneducated point of view of the paintings of a few students.

It's sad to see that in a country like ours where our forefathers paid artists generously to adorn their palaces and temples with deities and beautiful women alike, today's artistes don't have the freedom that is symbolic of a diverse and educated society. They respected these artistes as they held the ability to put into form what all of us just could only dream of. The palaces of Rajasthan, the temples of Bellur and Halibed all show beauty in its true form. It's just sad to see that a handful minority is ruling the vast majority in our country. These hooligans are openly flaunting their control over the police and the nauseating elements of our society.

Paintings are a medium of self expression. The person who paints is free, free even by the Indian Constitution that we so proudly cite, to express himself or herself in any way that he or she wishes to. This is something that is very personal. If you dont like it you should move onto the next painting and if you are someone from the VHP, BJP or Sang Parivar just move along to the next garbage dump and park yourselves there.

Am Old Skool already

The recent ads on Star show that there will be some Old Skool programs on the telly starting the 14th. Some of which include Wonder Years and Dougie Houser MD. These were the days when cable telivision wasnt that widespread and the few english channels that we had were always the talk of the next days lunch breaks in school. I still remember all of us talking about Winnie Cooper and how Kevin tried to kiss her unsuccessfully and all that. It was totally awesome. Will be fun catchin up on these classics or as they are calling it ... the old school stuff :)

impeDiments

The untimely demise of my creativity and enthusiasm can be greatly attributed to the presence of the hierarchial egos.

Good 'ol 70s and 80s

Heard some of these beauties on Yahoo Radio

You've got a friend (album:mud slide slim and true horizon) - james taylor
I'll have to say i love ya in a song - jim croce (time in a bottle)
You are so beautiful - joe cocker(ultimate collection)
I cant make you love me - bonnie rait(luck of the draw)

Now I feel like diggin up my oldies collection... Oh the beauty of romancing it with the blues, some jazz, some slow music and just swaying... considering that I dont know how to dance :) haha

Consciously Numb!

Getting out of the city is always a dream during our hectic schedules. Managing a break from the rigour of our mundane routines is just something that most of don't manage to do as often as we'd like. But whenever I get such a chance I make sure I enjoy it. Other than the pleasure of it all there is so much that you learn about some different people, our own country and most importantly about oneself.

Where ever I have gone throughout India there is one thing that I have noticed. The poor or the underprivileged are actually always more honest than the urban junta that I encounter on a daily basis. For example take the cost of a cold drink out here in Gurgaon. It would be really rare to find someone selling it at MRP, cooling charge is what they term the additional charge. I have been lucky to see many smaller villages along the routes to different cities and never at such places have I been asked to pay a dime more than the MRP.

Also take the temples in these smaller villages. The villagers actually get together and put in their savings just to build a decent temple to come and worship their deity. And we've seen this in Kerala, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra.. and I am sure it is the case everywhere else. Now compare this to the tens of lacs spent by people like the Bachans to get a glimpse of the deity at Tirupati.

How is it that people tend to loose sight of the simpler things in life? How can we keep forgetting about basic decency, honesty, integrity and if possible a little bit of selflessness at times? Why is it so hard for many of us to reach into our pockets and put in a cheque to a cause that we care about? All of us with our big degrees and fancy gizmos just seem to have forgotten so much about our country even though we are reminded of it at every signal or crossing in all the cities. How do we manage to turn a blind eye towards so many ghastly things that happen around us? Are our consciences that numb of feeling?

Appy Fizz Jingle "Welcome Back" Rocks

After a fundu Nike "Just do it" commercial for the Indian cricket mayhem, that turned dry with an eary exit, for the world cup 2007 there is an even better Appy Fizz "Welcome Back" jingle doing the rounds on radio. Dunno if they have a telly ad for this as well.

(a lil that I could remember go along these lines)

well its not all that bad
atleast now you have time for one more ad
welcome back welcome back home boys in blue
you went as men
but came back with no clue

find another scapegoat who you can blame...
find a reason something to cheer... there's always next to next to next to next year
welcome back welcome back home boys in blue
you went as men
but came back with no clue

Absolutely fab. Am sure they mustve got this done cheap too since the ad companies are sitting empty handed too. Creativity at its best. Thanks Appy Fizz made my day.


The media company now has the ad on YouTube... Alti-Kool :)

Indian Cricket needs sportsmen

It may sound cliche coming from me but when India was thrashed out of the world cup 2007 the only thing I could say is "I told ya so". So now that the losers are back in the country there is a whole hue and cry as to what is to be made to get Indian cricket back on track. Here are my suggestions

Cricket, if it has to be called a sport, needs sportsmen and not cricketers who kinda grace the field with their presence and fat bellies (read Shewag and Tendulkar). People who can bend their backs and pick up a ball (read Kumble and all of the current team) and guys who can actually run 100m in less than 20 seconds. Ya i dont think anyone in the Indian team can run 100m even in a minute.

So all the crap being laid out by the crappy BCCI is good news for me. For sure other sports are bound to benefit. I hope they do and I can bet they will flourish even if they get 1% of what goes into cricket.

Democracy is overhyped

Living in India I've heard the "we are the largest democracy in the world" slogan over and over again. This line has been beaten to death by everyone. The fact that the statement hold mainly because we are the largest country in the world by population doesnt seem to bother anyone using it.

Anyways today I heard about Ian Murdoch joining Sun Microsystems. For those who dont know Ian is the founder of Debian and is a strong leader in the open source communicty. He leaves the FS to joing Sun as a person who would guide Sun in its open source manouvers. In his recent interview with a tech site he clearly states that the reason why Debian lost out was because of a democractic process. This process though theoretically ideal leads to a lot of dilly dallying and in most cases a lot of time is lost for useless purposes. I am totally in agreement with this fact.

Take for instance the case of Linux and Linus Trovalds. The main reason why there is a good and steady stream of work in the linux kernel is because come what may it is Linus who decides what is going to be put in or left out. Ofcourse the so called community exists but there is noone who would dare question Trovalds. When push comes to shove Linus Trovalds has always won.

Coming back to the topic of democracy. As in the above cases I think that democracy has its merits but like any other form of governance has its limitations as well. It can be used as a tool to further the cause of the people and many a times in India it is used as a tool by the rich and the corrupt to further their own agendas. Take the case of the problems faced by the Tatas in Orissa and West Bengal where unnecessary delays are being faced by a project that could very well change the entire social and economic map of those regions.

Or for that matter take the case of the past 60 years of Indian Independence. The theory that India should be ruled by a dictator for its inital few years of Independence has been debated bt many of us and usually shunned. Indulge me for a few minutes and consider if such a thing were to happen. Yes there are many pitfalls associated with it but just consider it for a moment. Using a strong leader we could have anhialated many of the evils that plague our society. Corruption for one could be rooted out with enforcement of extreme punishment. Civic sense and order could be bought about through the use of a stronger police force, giving them more powers. A strong sense of community and nationality could be inculcated into people all across India. This would lead to the weeding out of anit social, criminal and even terrorist elements otherwise hidden in our country. The possibilities are endless. Yeah democracy is great and all but some restraint needs to be imposed, afterall we are simply a higher breed of animals right.

Yeah yeah the caveats are huge as well. But well you need a high risk portfolio for maximum gains in a minimal duration right?

And the Mayhem Has Begun...

Everyone who knows me, knows that I don't count cricket as one of my favorite sports. To be a bit more abusive I would say that I wouldn't count it as a sport at all, I would list it as a game along with scrabble and karaoke or charades. Now this would be considered totally shrink-worthy behaviour for an Indian and it may be diagnosed as life threatening too.

It is hard to ignore the fact that this game is somewhat of a religion in this part of the world. The people out here are fanatics and will hold huge prayers for their team so that they will bring back the 2007 World Cup. There again since there are only 16 teams playing this World Cup I think the use of the term World Cup out here is bit aggressive.

But yeah one of the good things that comes out of this mayhem is the tides of contests, cool offers, and sometimes some great advertisements on the telly too. Take a look at this fantastic Nike ad that sweetly sums up what cricket is all about in India. The sweat, passion and the magical road-side camaraderie that the game brings. So from my side Good luck to the Indian team. Win the cup or give us all the ad money back.

There goes my chance to win the google blogger cricket contest.

Healthcare Crisis

Unfortunately for me I have had to visit quite a few hospitals and clinics in Mumbai over the past 8 months. But fortunately the good lord made sure he kept me company and all went well. Really appreciate it big guy.

This brief encounter with the health care industry has left me with a dry throat, after all the yelling and screaming, and made me a supporter of euthanasia as well, for god forbid I have to depend on these people to keep me alive. So let me get started

1) Cleanliness definitely is not paid as much attention as it deserves
2) Professionalism is absolutely absent
3) Doctors are still considered kings and well they act like emperors doing just about whatever they wish
4) Lack of transparency. The patients are not informed about why medications are being given and why treatments are continued for extended periods.
5) The nurses in most places are truly under trained and sometimes downright incompetent. And to have to trust your lives in these hands is a tall order to place on a patient.
6) Earlier the best thing about hospitals was the awesome food that they provided. I think that too doesn't exist anymore.
7) Total lack of coordination between the health services and the insurance companies.
8) No accountability at all for these so called doctors of life.

We hear a lot about the next wave of medical outsourcing that is hitting India. I wonder how come foreigners, especially these Americans, manage in these sordid conditions. I guess they sallow a bit of their pride and Americanisms considering the low costs. But well give me a bottle of sleeping pills any day instead of a room in any of these hospitals.

Oh there is a silver lining to this dark cloud to. Low costs, great doctors (if you are patient enough to find them). So I hope the dark cloud shrinks in size soon. I ain't getting younger anyways:)

Who is this "aam aadmi" ?

( aam aadmi is desi parlance for the common man)

Come elections or come budget time there is all this blabber by these politicians about how the "aam aadmi" is being given special focus and how all the policies and decisions being made are so good for him/her. My question to these nuts is who the fuck is this aam aadmi?

I am a middle class salaried citizen of this country. We as a class contribute the largest towards the GDP via direct and many a times indirect taxes being levied on us. We often face the brunt of reforms and market adjustments, of changing governments and re-elections, of bad policy decisions and illiterate ministers. If anything needs to be solved its the middle classes are made the scapegoat.

Now I am not questioning the contribution and the existence of the impoverished classes of Indian society. But how come I (read middle class salaried employee) am never considered for during the budgets or elections. Why am I not taken into account as as being a victim in certain cases.

Why aren't there any special sops for me once in a while. Is there no benefit of being a law-abiding tax-paying citizen here? I don't get the respect of the law-makers or the help of the law-enforcers. I need to be in long queues everywhere and travel by the overcrowded public transport. My cooking gas bills are consistently increasing and electricity bills cant even be questioned. I am enjoying low telephone and broadband bills but I cant seem to ever afford a good car and even if I can I am scared of the unstable fuel prices, paltry roads and the maniacs driving on them.

Nowadays even when I take a so called low-budget airline flight I pay a surcharge on the ticket that's even more costlier than the damn ticket itself, as a landing tax, fuck just keep me in the air and give me a parachute.

So even if I don't qualify as an "aam aadmi" please stop fucking my life up and give me some respect. I think I've paid my taxes towards earning some of that.

read I/we as middle class, law abiding, tax paying citizens
the colours are intentionally upside down... symbolic to the topsy-turvy state of affairs

Oh Oh Oh

if there's something i've always wanted to do
it would to take your minute or two
minutes spent just being with you

maybe making you giggle or making you smile
making a fool of myself just for a lil while
anything that would bring a smile to your face
coz thats the only thing that could be as good as god's grace

doing anything... anything at all
just to make you recall
those few moments spent with me
those few moments that lasted an eternity

Congratulations Tata Steel

Hats off to Ratan Tata and the guys out at Tata Steel for bagging Corus. Hope you guys make it worth the investment.
-Loyal Shareholder

Technorati Tag: Tata Steel, Corus

Diagnosed but not Treated yet

Continuous partial attention is that Linda Stone has called it and HBS's HBR has even put it up as one of the breakthrough ideas for 2007. I know exactly what she is talking about and am proof that the phenomenon is not US centric at all. This flat world funda keeps biting me in the ass again and again. Well now that I know what I've caught can Linda please tell me how to control it?

Technorati Tag: HBR

Desi Airlines - A Comparison

Previously I had made a comparison on some of the airlines that I had an opportunity to travel on. Recently I tried out a couple more and here are my inputs

7. Air Sahara

Kudos

Loads of reception isles
Have started giving out low fares as well
Pretty airhostesses
Quite frequent flights
Decent connectivity overall

Cribbs

Announcements are very loud, especially for a late night flight they should be banned
Food couldve been better
Didn't SMS that my flight was delayed
Seats were kinda crampy. I was on the window seat and my head was hitting the sides:)

8. Indigo

Kudos

Have their check-in counters over with Jet Airways in the swanky new terminal
Annoucements are made in a polite and low sound way
Pretty airhostesses
Superbly designed shuttle buses
Brand new A320s
**Probably the smoothest landings I've experienced in years

Cribbs

Number of announcements went a bit high
Not too many options for purchase of food on the plane, just some peanuts and the like

Technorati Tags: AirSahara, Indigo, India,Airlines,Indian,JetAirways,Kingfisher,GoAir,SpiceJet,AirDeccan

Croma Store Mumbai

Location: Juhu. Between Amitabh Bachan's bungalow, Mithibhai's Girls Hostel and PVR Cinemas. Close to Arogya Nidhi hospital.

I have visited the Croma store out in Juhu a couple of times and am totally impressed. This TATA enterprise shop is totally awesome not just in the merchandise and the prices that they offer but also in the service that is provided as soon as you step in. There is a sales guy or gal nearby who you can shoot some questions at and they help you out with whatever you need. If they don't have it they are co-ordial enough to suggest alternatives as well. Best of all is that they don't mind suggesting a cheaper product if that is what suites your need the best. They claim to have a fantastic after sales service which thankfully I haven't had the displeasure of needing yet. But with the experience thus far I would be really disappointed if that did not live up to expectations.

Now that's what I call being treated like a valuable customer. I wish these guys success and hopefully more stores all over the place. Lets get the hedgehogs who have monopolised the electronics market with shoddy service and once sold you and the product are forgotten techniques.

Croma Juhu
Vasundhara Cooperative Society
CTS No 194
Off Village Juhun JVPD
Mumbai 400049
Tel. No. 67103333

Monks and Ferraris

Desi Funda

Got another book covered while frantically travelling between Mumbai and Delhi during the end of '06 and start of '07. "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" - Robin Sharma. I really liked the book and what the author had to offer in terms of how we should be living a more fruitful existence. But what struck me most was how he managed to gel the aura of eastern world philosophy, mythology, religion and culture, or ethos if you may, and relate it to the life of an average American or for that matter any average, middle-class, middle-aged guy or gal anywhere in the "flat world". Really interesting read and this coming from a me, guy who really hates reading the self-help motivational type books.

2006 for tech

It has been a wonderful year for the tech companies in India. There have been a long list of M&A's combined with a record splurge of investments by various venture capital groups in the India scene. The hot property of the moment seems to be online travel sites, animation and a little bit of Web 2.0 as well.

Check this out for more details

Looks like 2007 is gonna be a killer year for the Indian entrepreneur sitting either in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai or any other nook and cranny of the Indian subcontinent. Best of luck to all those daring guys and gals.

To beginning afresh

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. -Chinese proverb

For all of you out there with a long list of new year resolutions and laundry lists of things to get done in 2007. Hope this proverb boosts you up. Have a glorious year ahead.