Anil Ambani's thirst

Anil Ambani has been on an acquisition spree ever since he and his brother Mukesh split the Reliance empire in two. With his vast kitty and ofcourse reputated name there seems to be no lack of investors ready to finance his interests, the latest of which is the Hutchison Essar stake of 67% in Hutch. Hold your seats for this one. The valuation of that stake is said to be to the tune of $17-18 billion which when converted to rupees is a healthy 75-82,000 crores.

The stock market in India is highly overvalued, pushed upwards more by market speculation, emotional sentiments and a "we have a great future" attitude. That said there seems to be no justification for a telecom company to be valued that high especially since there has been no market consolidation at all before. There are no clear leaders and there is ample opportunity for each player to compete and get a larger share of the Indian consumer pie.

Just for the record the margins in which these companies are playing the telecom game in India is ridiculously low, waging wars more on finding a larger consumer base rather than capitalising on the already exisiting consumers that they have. The mean ARPU (average returns per user) in urban India is around $7 while that in rural India is around $3.

Considering all this wouldn't it be wise for Reliance telecom to use that kitty that it has for acquistions on better infrastructure etc and grow organically rather than get into a bidding war with international conglomerates who are looking for a growth pill from the emerging markets? And considering that the bidding is supposedly starting at the $17billion mark and will definitely move upwards, it would end up being more valuable that RCOM itself. Atleast on this case I think Anil is trying to bite off more than he can chew here.

Airtel Magic - All Cost No Service

Airtel is the largest private mobile services provider in India currently, under the brand of Bharti. They have been reaping the benefits of the growing mobile consumer base and making healthy strides one market at a time. The company has some awesome ad campaigns and probably some of the largest coverage areas in the subcontinent. And now to the cribb.

I have been a customer of Airtel since I came back here in 2004, thats nearly 2.5 years. I was a postpaid customer in Bangalore and now here in Delhi. For starters it was pretty good in Bangalore since I was a customer under Sun Microsystems and well we managed to get some good deals. But when I wanted to get additional services activated or deactivated it was a nightmare. Now around 6 months ago I moved out here to Gurgaon and well decided to stick with Airtel.
0) They did not allow me to transfer my number from Bangalore to Delhi.
1) I got a postpaid connection and first thing they do is set my usage limit to be 700Rs. So if I crossed 700Rs in the first month my service would be automatically deactivated and I wouldnt be able to send/receive calls
2) They don't check for previous records at all. I was an Airtel customer in Bangalore and when I took a connection out here they shouldve atleast given me credit for being a good customer for the past 2 years. I was never late in payments and well thats all that they care about.
3) No Roaming. They are demanding 1500Rs as a deposit to activate my roaming. While this is done hassle free on prepaid cards it seems to be such a big hassle on postpaid. I just cant understand why.

All in all Airtel like any big business house in India seems to treat customers like shit once they have captured the market. The only hope is that TRAI comes up with better policies to help us out with these unnecessary headaches.

Have a wonderful season

Say what you want but noone can deny the warmth, joy and that inherent cheer associated with Christmas. For some it is a time for Santa, for others its simply a time to go all out with the Christmas tree or deck up their roofs with wonderful lights. Say what you want but its just wonderful to meet and greet someone at this time of the year.

So to you all my best wishes for this Christmas season. May there be joy, happines and warmth in your family, with your friends and everyone you know. May you truely enjoy Christmas and all that it stands for. Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Super quote

Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.

Thats the first line off the first SEC filing by Google Inc. The first page introduced as LETTER FROM THE FOUNDERS - “AN OWNER’S MANUAL” FOR GOOGLE’S SHAREHOLDERS

Online Shopping is Improving

The past mont I placed a couple of orders online for some books via fabmall.com and firstandsecond.com. Initially I was quite skeptical and apprehensive about the mess I was getting myself into. Hell I could just walk out to a bookstore and fetch some of these books in person but well I gave it a try. To my suprise the experience is very pleasant as compared to the mess I've had with indiatimes.com and rediff.com (books) in the past. The new kids on the block seem to have a good customer service focus in place. I sent them a couple of mails bugging them to update me about the status of my shipment and I got quick replies (<24hrs) every time. Pretty cool. And not just that these emails were not simply some automated responses but someone out there really checking up my order and being curteous with his/her response. Some people have noticed the importance of repeat customers in the limited online market in India. As for me it sure feels good to be treated like a valued customer again:)

Google MCap

From $85 to $505 in 732 days....
Now that is impressive if not downright scary. Take a look at the company that we are talking about. With this it has a market cap of around 155 billion ahead of companies like IBM, Intel and the likes and even closing in on Berkshire Hathaway. Wow!!!

This is definitely a tale meant for the records but well considering the true products that google offers it is a bit suprising to see its value at such a high. While its revenues are around a few billion its profits mostly rely on advertisements, which can definitely not be treated as a core revenue stream for a multi-billion dollar company (or atleast the conventional ones)

All the startups out there seem to be wanting to be the next Google. But what would be more interesting is when and if someone out there manages to outperform Google either at Wall Street or in the Valley.

iwoz

Managed to complete reading iWoz this weekend. The downtime with a severe cold and the absence of a television helped me wipe the dust of some of the books lying around.

The book is a definite read for many of the engineers out there who would love to remain engineers for their lives. The story of Steve Wozniak is definitely intriguing. It also validates my beliefs that no one is born a genius but rather born into it. The circumstances surrounding your childhood, more especially the things that are exposed to you then determine your path for the rest of your life.

The literature buffs may find repetition and overlaps consistently. It seems like a book organised out of disorganised post-its rather than a complete autobiography. Some may find the lack of humility or modesty in the prose but when it comes to a person like Steve Wozniak I guess there are few that could question the claims he makes.

All in all a must-read for an engineer out there. Have fun.

Don - The Remake

If you happen to be headed out to watch Don or planning on doing so, please don't! However if you happen to be headed out to meet Sharukh Khan please tell him that he is old now and his attempt to be different is as nauseating as his original acting style.

Cleartrip.com sucks impresses

Original post below**

First check out the comments section of this post. It seems that Hrush Bhatt has been enjoying his weekend by surfing the internet and checking what people think about his company cleartrip.com. Luckily for me he ran into my crib-post and well he says he has got my refund credited back to my account. Now I haven't checked all that yet but hell I am impressed... very impressed. Regardless of whether the refund is processed in a day or a week, I hope it is done in a day though:), impressive is the fact that someone actually wants to see what people think about their work. I am really impressed by the fact that some entrepreneurs out there actually care about their customer's and want to cash in on repeat business by providing decent levels of customer service.

We Indians are accustomed to an apathetic attitude from dealers/resellers.. heck anyone who sells us anything is sweet and polite and flashes the "customer is king" placard on their walls, but once the sale is done they don't even bother checking up on their customers. No one seems to bother and see how many repeat footfalls they manage, because hell as we have it there are around 1-billion of us and if a customer doesn't return someone else definitely will. Someone else who will probably keep his/her mouth shut and accept a shoddy meal (Tamarind @ Koramangala, Bangalore, Something Fishy @ Langford Road, Bangalore) or someone who won't care that they don't provide a customer care number at all (indiatimes.com, though they have added toll free numbers recently) or someone who quietly pays up for services that are not being rendered (Cable Operators).

Ideally the goal of businesses should be to respect their customers and provide high enough quality of service, high enough to turn their "customer service" centers into "customer care" centers, only to check up on their customers and wish them well.

So much needs to change and there is so little time. So here's wishing the new breed of Indian entrepreneurs the very best and hoping they have read some of the books Hrush Bhatt and his colleagues have. Now only if the Jet Airways staff were reading my blog! Right Hrush?


ps.
Since I have listed part of my black list, here are some on my favored list
1. Kingfisher Airlines
2. Legends of Rock @ Koramanagala, Bangalore
3. Bejing Bites @ Richmond Road, Bangalore
4. Citibank
4. ICICI Bank
5. Syndicate Bank
and some more....


** Original Post
Booking a ticket online... stay away from cleartrip.com. I mistakenly booked a ticket via their portal last month (just when it was launched) and had to cancel the ticket and then the mess began and hasn't ended yet.

After I hit the cancel button I get an email that states that I need to take the paper ticket to the particular airline counter (in this case Jet Airways) and get it cancelled myself and then submit the canceled stub back to cleartrip via and email. What a ludicrous thing to do or even propose, and worse still this was an e-ticket, there NO paper ticket issued here. After howling at them a bit I manage to get their attention and they say that the refund will be duly credited back to my credit card within 15 days. Today its over 30 days and I still haven't received the refund so I call customer care (what an antithesis) to be told by a kid named Renuka that Jet Airways hasn't processed my refund yet and hence the delay. What the heck! I made a payment to cleartrip.com and I should receive a refund by them itself what do I care about what they need to do behind the scenes. Shoddy site, shoddy service.

So if you are booking your tickets online stay away from the cleartrip.com website, without hesitation.

Technorati Tags:cleartrip airlinebooking India

So where was I?

I just read that Vidya Balan supposedly studied at St.Xavier's College, the very same place that I graduated from. So how come I didn't bump into Miss Vidya Balan anytime. Damn god sure knows how to keep the beauties away from the beasts:)

And yeah as things may have it Vidya Balan turns out to be yet another mallu chick. Damn! Treasure chest down in southwest India. Unfortunately as an ex-colleague just pointed out all the good looking mallu girls are out of mallu-land.



Technorati Tags: vidyabalan kerala stxaviers

Diwali

Well this year's Diwali was spent out in Gurgaon. Though everything is alright the irony of this diwali struck me when I read the awesome deals being thrown at Indian consumers this festival season, courtesy TOI India's largest selling sleaze and advertisement daily. Seems like we have had diwali celebration with Indian tradition, Chinese firecrackers, Japanese cars, Asian gizmos, America and the Europe's outsourced jobs, Pakistani terrorism and finally our very own authentic dengue fever:)

Globalisation watch out, here we come!

Google's monopolising my online time

I just noticed that slowly I have moved most of my online resources over onto Google services. Here is the list

Google Reader [RSS Aggregator]
Google Docs and Spreadsheets [Basic MSOffice Needs]
Blogger [Blogging]
Google Analytics [Monitoring My Sites]
Orkut [Keeping in Touch with Pals]
Google Calendar [Organising myself]
GooglePages [My Website]
GMail [Email Services]
Picasa [Online Photo Organiser]
Google Talk [Chat]
Google News [News]
Google Desktop [integrated search, rss, cal, etc...widgets]

So is this going to be the Google Decade or something ? My laptop is dominated by the light blue and white colors of the silent giant.

Technorati Tags: Google

First North Trip

Well after being to Agra over a month ago I managed to make the best of a long weekend this time and went off to some places out in Himachal Pradesh. Started with Kasauli on Saturday, then out to Shimla on Sunday and Kufri on the final day ie Monday. You can check out my pics (beware they are mostly of the mountain slopes) at PicasaWeb

The places were not all that great, especially since they turned out to be really crowded. The only good thing about them was that they were in increasing order in terms of altitude. Kasauli at around 1900m, then Shimla at around 2200m and finally Kufri touching 2500m. Yeah managed to get in a go cart ride at the supposedly highest go cart circuit in the world!

Next time its off to some place more serene and away from the maddening crowds. If there exists one.

Technorati Tags: Travel India HimachalPradesh Kufri Kasauli Shimla

Milestones Remembered

When we were in Parkway Plaza at Penn we came up with a list of milestones that we could aspire to reach and measure our lives as successful or otherwise. We put this up on our refrigerator and well its probably out there still:)

next 6 months - find an assistantship (funding was everything then)
age 22 - finish off the master's
age 23 - get a job..one that pays
age 25 - yell at your boss, quit the job and start your own company
age 27 - loose all your money on your company
age 27.5 - put your tail between your legs and go back to your previous boss and beg for your old job back
age 28 - get married...preferably to a woman
age 30 - eurotrip
age 31 - get married to another woman in some other part of the world
age 32 - experience bankruptcy
age 35 - get a phd
age 40 - get divorced from both the wives and marry a chick half your age
age 45 - move to a country where you can be called a millionaire with the few bucks that you have left
age 50 - good luck staying alive

Technorati Tags: milestone

Anyone willing to pay for Constructive Criticism?

All of us know the importance of good and constructive criticism in any aspect of our life, most importantly our work. Now we usually also know for a fact that criticism and the heated discussions that follow are probably the best moments of learning for most receptive individuals. However after all this it is really rare to find individuals who can digest criticism face on without pride getting in the way.

I have this uncanny and probably unwanted ability of speaking my mind out straight up without any hesitation. However on most occasions the receiving side usually doesnt want to hear anything that deviates from their current line of thought.

Come on the best way to learn, teach and improve on your ideas is by direct confrontation with people that oppose your idea. And if you can go ahead and manage to convince these same people that your ideas are much more better than theirs and these are the reasons why then you are bound to be more confident about your approach. And of course if you do not manage to convince these non believers then the fact is that either your idea is not based on a solid foundation or it is simply junk. Yes, you sometimes need to accept the fact that your idea may be not worth its weight at the scrapyard either.

Now while there are very few people who manage to accept criticisms there seem to be fewer who are willing to stick out their necks and blast out their criticisms to their peers and superiors with true confidence. Frankly I dont seem to have any trouble saying "Hey this sounds like crap!"

Corporates are willing to pay people to blog for them, to spy for them and/or do anything that would improve their organisation. What I am wondering is whether they are ready to pay individuals like myself to come out in their house and spell out exactly what I feel is crap in there and what are the things that bug me the most. Now remember this is what most of your employees think about them too but they are just too scared to say it out loud. Any takers? Though I haven't heard of any CEO's reading my blog just in case there are any interested in this prospect get in touch with me at allen.mathias@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: Consultant ConstructiveCriticisms Consultant

Google is improving - proof

Theorem:
Google is constantly innovating on search and is actually innovating

Proof:
2 years ago my webpage at Penn featured as the "I'm feeling lucky match" for the search "allen mathias"
1 year ago Google featured something relevant to me as the 4th entry in its search results while MSN's beta search engine had me as the top search result.
1 minute ago Google features my blogger profile as the top search result for my name.

Therefore PROVED Google is innovating as we type:)

Hurray!

Technorati Tags: Google ImFeelingLucky Blogs

Manipulations of the Media

The recent uproar of Muslims throughout the world against Pope Benedict's remarks had me thinking that the new Pope is quite orthodox and even more confrontational than what I assumed him to be from previous literature. I, like many of the people around the world, fell in for what the media flashed out all over the place.

As it turns out the quotes of Pope Benedict though absolutely spoken by him were in fact within a context of reference to a passage from some medieval text. He simply quoted the text and was having a dialogue based on the same. There was no malice or ill intention from the Pope at all.

The media has been well known to "make news" out of basically anything, however demeaning and unprofessional it may be. Most of the headlines in the papers have similar sources. They simply take the few words from an entire article that would turn out to be eye-catching or a double meaning and print it out in bold as the topic of the article.

For decades now the church has been a non confrontational leader in the new world. At many a occasion the church has even apologised for mistakes of the past. There is no reason to believe that the church holds such views at all. Unfortunately the reaction to such concocted media statements from the Muslim community has been far from encouraging. If it were the reactions from a few uneducated people I would'nt have been surprised however we have national leaders who are reacting with such childlike tantrums that I fear that dialogue is not something in their minds at all. At least world leaders and the educated masses should have confirmed the sources of such an article and found out the entire text of the speech given by Pope Benedict before reacting in any way. Especially considering that other people of the community do not overreact.

It is truly shameful that Middle East leaders have not come out to calm the extremists. And ofcourse regardless of what their intentions are I am sure that Pope Benedict will come out with a an apology of any sort or form that the Muslim community demands so that the world is a more peaceful place for all of us.

For those who care to read the speech. This is the link here

Technorati Tags: Vatican Pope Benedict speech Muslims

Lagge Raho Vidyaji

I dunno what it is with me and smiles. But for me a beautiful smile is well worth making a fool of myself. And man does Vidya Balan take the cake for actresses with a genuinely breathtaking smile.. Well Sushmita Sen is also right up there with her but since I just saw the new flick Lage Raho Munnabhai, Vidya has the queen of all smiles.

Technorati Tags:VidyaBalan,smile,Lage Raho Munnabhai

TOI's only interesting piece

For me Times of India is probably the worst newspaper there every is. Not a shred of journalism in the tons of pages that it burdens itself with. Even the basic spell checker seems to be missing in the software used to write their columns. Most of the news is either stale or copied from the internet with little or no intention of giving credit where due nor is an attempt made to provide a different perspective. And yeah I buy it because of the adverts thats all. But the quote for the day this thursday was worth the paper and ink used to print it.

It irritates me to be told how things have always been done
... I defy the tryanny of precedent

- Clara Barton

Made my day especially with the BS that was being fired towards me for the most of the week. Cheers.

Emperor for a day

I am sure most of us have fantasised about various fairy tales. Surely wondered about the fairy who grants your 3 wishes and man do I have my 3 wishes all down and ready just in case she drops by. But recently the question arose about what would you do if you were given charge of the country for an indefinite amount of time. Now here is something that I can't let pass so easily. So lets get into the nitty-gritty...well atleast some details.

So here is what I would do if I was made supreme commander of India with absolute command and authority
1. Implementation of Uniform Civil Code after a timeframed dialogue process.
The worthiness of a Uniform Civil Code in as diverse a society as India is overwhelming. There is no reason why the various parties concerned have not been able to reach a consensus on this issue. Most importantly it has been the largest minority community who is not ready to get this issue in the forefront. Not even in Islamic states have they been given this much freedom. However it is time that they stood up for being true citizens of India and show that they are willing to let go of some haphazard ways for the betterment of their own and the country as a whole. Ofcourse dialog is important and a must. However there has to be a timeline set and this timeline should be set in stone so that we can move forward towards developing a strong and united nation.

2. National Language.
The issue regarding the National Language has been bought up on many occasions however nothing has been done about it. For the nation to be one nation we need to identify with each other and there is no better way than by having a common medium of communication. The national language Hindi should be compulsarily spoken everywhere and all sign boards throughout the nation should bear captions in Hindi, English and the local tongue. The debate could be continued for a limited period of time to decide if Hindi is not a suitable national language but it should occur within a very limited and short period.

3. Paid Mandatory Military Service
Military Service has been touted for many years but the problem there being the simple fact that India has the largest growing youth population in the world. This leads to a statistical nightmare in terms of carrying out a thing like mandatory Military Service. However if we go ahead and enforce the same for 2years by replacing the customary 11th and 12th grade with 2years of military service and making the youth pay for these 2years an equal amount they wouldve paid towards their education we can possibily have a way of lowering the cost burden on the economy. Moreover Military Service can also be replaced with things like community service, rural volunteers eg. teaching in a school for 2 years etc.

4. Cleaning the politicians
Having the same bloodline of politicians has lead to the mass rape of our constitution by these so called elected officials. There should be a limit on number of people who have served/leeched the country from a particular family, sons, daughters, nephews, neices etc all included. Moreover people who would stand for election need to have been in community service for atleast 5 years and should not have crimes that ellicit the death penalty registered against them. They should have atleast completed their graduation and know how to dress in a suit and tie if need be.

5. Timeframed Elimination of Reservation based on caste and a move towards providing opportunity to the economically backward sections.
The reservation system in the country has been misused from the get go. The people who should be getting the benefit of this system are nowhere in the picture while the scoundrels in parliament make fake certificates and place their signatures on the same for a paltry sum. The caste based reservation system is clearly a step in the wrong direction. There needs to be a system that provides economic support ie low interest or 0% interest loans to people from economically insufficient families.

6. Strengthening the Police Force.
Save Mumbai and Punjab the police force all over India is in shambles and definitely not worth mentioning. The level of corruption in this guardian of our society and the most visible form of governance in our daily lives is nauseatingly high. There needs to be an immediate increase the pay scales of these gentlemen while weeding out the rats and boot-polishers of the politicos within these ranks. Their morale should be boosted by providing regular interaction with the armed forces and making sure that this force is ready for frontline duties as a reserve force for the nation if and when need be.

7. Panchayat Raj and Central Control
The states would continue to have autonomy for various purposes, especially with daily governance and issues regarding the region. But any decisions that would lead to turmoil or cause other states to carry out nefarious actions should be dealt as a matter of the nation. The Centre would have total control towards taking decisions on these issues. Moreover the panchayat type governance model should be followed wherein localities govern themselves and are allowed to invest a portion of their taxes paid back into their own community.

I am sure I will remember many more once i leave this space but these are all for now. Cheers!

Chinese Valentine's Day

It seems that according the Chinese calendar today is celebrated as Valentine's Day. Surrounding this myth there is a truely beautiful story of two lovers. The amazing thing was that it did actually pour heavily out here in Gurgaon today and I just couldn't let the coincidence slip by. Hope you enjoy the tale!

India as an integral part of China

Now I know how the Chinese feel. India has gone ahead and blocked access to sites such as blogspot, geocities etc where people like myself post their views. This under the excuse of the Mumbai blasts and that such sites were being used by anti-national elements. Well that just shows the amount of stupid morons we have in the IT department in our country.

And whats worse is that the blockage is done in a technology unsavvy manner. For eg. I can still post to my blog by logging into blogger but I just can't access it in my browser. So if any anti-national element needs to spread his/her message he/she still can and ofcourse the use of proxies and other hacks would still allow you access to any of the blocked sites.

And all this in a democracy and that too the largest one in the world. The word "largest" that is harped on so much. Well as long as this lasts let me welcome all my countrymen/women to being an integral part of China.

Technorati Tags: India, Blogs, Ban, China

Air Deccan Sucks

Air Deccan should be renamed Air Dick-an. I just decided that I would like to travel to Mumbai for the weekend and for saving around 500Rs I decided to fly Deccan. Now I got onto the site and selected my flights and when I hit the confirm button (before moving to the payment tab) there is this popup which shows up saying that RF######## is my reference number just in case I don't get the PNR number at the end of this. I should've bailed out just then but naive me went on to make the payment and lo-and-behold the site just went onto a blank page with Done showing up at the statusbar. Now I try the reference number to get my PNR but it says that the number is invalid. Great. Immdieatly checked my bank balance and ofcourse 5573Rs were already dedcuted. I call the customer care number and after giving the jerk wastes 30mins of my time typing my complaint down he says that they have registered a case and it would take 14 working days for me to get my money back. Whats worse is that I don't get the tickets either.

Now this is just ludicrous use of technology. Stupidity at its worse. By giving out a RF number before the payment is made just says that they already know that their system doesn't work and they are not willing to do anything about it other than show a useless popup with an equally useless RF number.

Chuck Air Deccan out of the window from my list of i-wanna-fly-em airlines. Jerks!

Technorati Tags: AirDeccan, CustomerCare, Complaint, BadExperience

Mumbai Blasts 7/11

Everyone has by now heard and read about the merciless act of terror committed by cowards in Mumbai on the 11th of July 2006. The series of 7 high intensity bomb blasts most of which were in the local trains in Mumbai killed nearly 200 people and left more than 700 Mumbaikars injured. As anyone who has visited Mumbai would know that the train network is the heartline of the city and literally millions of middle class people travel to and from work using this mode of transport.

These killings were a rude shock to many of the cosmopolitan Mumbaikars. This shock will leave an indelible mark with many of us. At the same time though these blast give us a stern reminder that India has been in a state of emergency right since 1979. The events of 7/11 in Mumbai are acts that happen on a routine basis in our state of Jammu and Kashmir. People in J&K have been held hostage to these terrorists for the past 2.5 decades while the rest of the country has continued on with its own agenda turning a blind eye to our citizens and soldiers in J&K. This callous attitude has strengthened the network of these terrorists not just within the state but throughout the country. They have probably managed to form an invisible thread within out country with strong support of the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh which provide economic, moral and territorial support for their neferious training camps and madrassas.

I just read an article in the Hindustan Times by the renowned Barkha Dutt (NDTV). She as a journalist has been a strong supporter of the peace process and these blasts have shown her the grim reality of terror first hand. As it has for many of us. Things that have been only seen in snippets of Israeli telivision footage and gory pictures are now things that we can relate with having experienced it first hand. According to her article the shock was so strong for her that she doubts the success of the peace process and the need for us to waste our valuable resources trying this route while the other party is not ready to move a muscle in return. Well Barkha welcome to the real world. Just to put in in figures J&K has seen the loss of >50,000 Indians over the past 2 decades. That is 250 times the people that died in Mumbai!!! Now imagine the casualties in lives, injuries and their families.

It is time that India strikes back. India has to prove to the world and more importantly to her citizens that she is ready to defend herself and that she values the lives of her citizens. Unlike int the past, where Indian soldiers of the flag where tortured and their mutilated bodies were strung on bamboo sticks like some hunter's game by Bangladeshi troops and yet India did not strike back. That event still gets my blood boiling with anger. The largest democracy in the world needs to value the life of each and every of its citizens and just as the United States had the right and the determination to defend its country by waging wars overseas we too need to weed out these fundamentalists at their roots. If it is by crossing international borders then so be it... all things considered we are at war since 1979 its time we seize the fort and hoist the flag or else generations will keep paying the price for our cowardice.

Technorati Tag: Mumbai, Bombay, Blasts, 7/11, Jammu, Kashmir, BarkhaDutt, India

Carriers in the Indian Skies - A Candid Comparison

Desi Fun(da)

Well over the past few months I have flown in many of the new carriers that have invaded the Indian skies. The list of airlines who have enjoyed my business, and in true desi fashion have not bothered to thank me at all, are as follows and ofcourse it is accompanied by my list of cribbs and kudos.

1. Indian (formerly Indian Airlines)

Kudos

good food
pleasant service
very frequent flights
superb connectivity
experienced engineers and hence safer planes
national domestic carrier
allows decent amount of baggage

Cribbs

the changed name and colors aren't enough
airhostesses are not hot enough
green seat covers and not appealing
online booking portal is not user-friendly
not much legroom

2. Jet Airways

Kudos

hot airhostesses
good connectivity
international flights
experienced crew
allows decent amount of baggage

Cribbs

jet-sahara deal devalued my stock by ~20k
too high fares
not much legroom

3. Kingfisher

Kudos

bought in strong competition to the big boys
superb food
friendly crew and staff
focussing on service
classy uniforms
introduced very easy online booking
slab fares
brand new A320s
allows decent amount of baggage

Cribbs

airhostesses couldve been hotter
slab fares again
not much legroom

4. GoAir

Kudos

classy online booking
choice of seat online while booking itself

Cribbs

seats get expensive as you book closer to the departure date
yucky flourescent uniforms under navy blue vests and pants
leased aircrafts
not much legroom
allows only 15kgs baggage - excess is at Rs70/kg

5. SpiceJet

Kudos

good service
friendly and smiling crew and staff
serving cookies and water onboard instead of whole meals - cost-effective and sensical for Indian flight durations
brand new Boeing 737-800s
good legroom
good looking airhostesses

Cribbs

those Boeings are hideous and make too much noise
allows only 10kgs baggage

6. Air Deccan

Kudos

very economical and made flying possible for a large section of Indians

(30-40% of its flyers are first time flyers)

very creative advertising techniques employed for additional captial generation
online booking is decent

Cribbs

leased aircrafts - most of them look as-if they were picked off a airline scrap yard
no service at all
heavy last-minute cancellations and rescheduling of flights
don't even serve water onflight - everything has to be purchased
sad and depressing airhostesses
not assigning seat numbers ie you can pick any seat as you board the flight
allows only 15kgs baggage - excess is at Rs70/kg

Well there is no guessing which one is my favourite and which ones I'd rather not entrust my life with. All in all I feel safety is of the paramount importance to me while I fly and there is nothing else that matters especially while flying within the subcontinent. The flight durations are around an hour to an hour and a half and food and other things don't matter much. If an airline promises me safety at a reasonable price and throws in some goodies and eye-candy with it I would definitely shell out the extra amount to have a thoughtless journey. On the other hand the various low cost carriers have definitely helped bring air travel to the common man and cost will always remain of paramount importance to many of us Indians. I wish all the carriers well and am sure that there are sufficient customers to feed all their fat bellies in our country.



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GoAir experience

  
Desi Fun(da)
  
The online booking experience at the GoAir website is wonderful. The site is designed in the eye friendly colors of light blue and white and things seem to be arranged spot on. The best part of the ticketing experience is that there is a "Pick Seat" feature which gives you a layout of the airplane and lets you pick your seat. Now that is one thing that I have always wanted to see especially wrt international carriers. When someone is paying around 20k for a one-way international ticket they should at least have the opportunity to request a particular seat. Surprisingly no one of our other carriers have this feature available as yet. I guess they are just scared to show how many seats are actually full. And it helps that I may just get a free air ticket on this route....pretty cool.

And whatsup with those hideous uniforms. It looks like some design school dropout got the task of desinging their uniforms and man are they sad. The long sleaves and flourescent colors do not go along with the navy blue pants and tops that they wear and worse still they are really injurious to the eyes. Even if the attendants are good looking the uniforms would turn me away. The airhostesses were alright but still Jet rules. The served a bottle of water on the flight and there were other refreshments on sale. So it was pretty decent. The planes are definitely leased out and not brand new so it is a bit unnerving but they don't seem to be that old.

Well unfortunately I did not win the free ticket and whats worse is that my baggage turned out to be overweight so had to pay a hefty price of Rs70/kg to load it. I should have just carried it as hand baggage instead of checking it in like a dumb ass. But in general the checkin procedure was alright. There were no unnecessary delays or anything so that was a plus. The only crappy part of the GoAir website is that the booking feature works only on IE :( and doesn't move on Mozilla.

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Book: Steve Jobs... by Young and Simon

Desi Fun(da)

Just done reading "Steve Jobs: The greatest second act in the history of business" by Young and Simon last night while watching Brasil thrash Japan. The book is an amazing journey through the life of an equally amazing technologist. The games that he has played and those played on him through his early career days "make great reading". But what stands paramount amongst the qualities of Jobs is his ability to recognize, recruit and retain talent without which Apple would not be the kind of company it is today - always admired by the uber geeks around the world. It is said that Steve has the unique capability to motivate people behind an idea that is generations ahead and would probably seem unrealistic and totally absurd while working on it, more so when combined with his pulled in deadlines. Probably the most important contributor who made Apple what it is, is the co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak. There are little details about him in the book and he barely makes the news (other than lately where he publicly showed his disappointment when Apple went from Power to Intel). Woz is widely acknowledged as a guru in electronics especially his PCB creations that were smaller and better than anyone else out there, and with lesser components. As the book mentions Woz's use of minimal components with Steve's drive for detail by keeping all the soldering and connections along straight clean lines and his attention to external packaging gave the Macs a unique beauty outside and inside.

What makes the book even more of a must read is that Steve had actually opposed the release of the book and threatened action against the publishers, though I think he didn't. But after the release of the book all Mac stores stopped carrying any of the books by the same publisher, according to news reports. But all that just gives so much more credibility to the book right:)

KemCho Mukeshbhai

Desi Fun(da)

Am sure Mukeshbhai's answer to that would be "Majjama". The recent announcement by Reliance Industries to setup the largest SEZ in India at Haryana has bought in a great attention to itself. The location of the zone is strategic, being right next to Gurgaon on the NH8 it will be situated close to New Delhi, which would be an ideal gateway for top executives and being close to Gurgaon the working population will have a well planned town which is already in place. Being spread across 25k acres of land and having its own cargo terminal and power plant it is bound to bring in a rich flow of investment in the manufacturing sector.

Recently Chidambaram was heard saying "Make a list of all the things that block you from achieving 12% growth in manufacturing" to captains of Industry. With that kind of a push Mukeshbhai is on the right track to strengthening his empire. Am sure Narendra "Anti-Muslims" Modi must be fuming considering that Gujarat has been trying to hard sell itself as a sound investment destination especially in manufacturing.

There was a subtle statement made by Mukeshbhai during this press announcement "I would rather make headlines by action than by announcement". Ouch that was definitely a shot at the media-savvy younger bro Anil. A recent article showed that after the settlement between the brothers Mukesh's empire has shown solid growth while Anil's mcap has gone down considerably. While Anil's portfolio is definitely next-gen and with ample opportunity of growth it could never beat the black gold that Mukesh will hold in RIL and RPL. Well lets wait and watch as this generation of Ambanis play their cards and see how much investor wealth they can create in comparison to the legendary Dhirubhai.

Transplant for Shiv Sena

Uddav and Bal Thackeray had a massive rally yesterday for his Shiv
Sainiks. Since his foray into secular or minority based politics was a
total disaster in the last elections, the proof of which hangs sadly
on his chin (he had said he would not shave his beard if he lost), the
party has reverted back to its communal agenda. He has gone ahead and
even claimed that he would take Naxal support to go ahead and crush
Islamic fundamentalism in the country.

Even by the farthest stretch of imagination I don't support the Shiv
Sena but there are things that I admire about Mr. Bal Thackeray. And
one of the most important things he has going for him especially
during his glory years, is the ability to motivate and stir the minds
of people listening to him. A fascinating orator he is always ready to
belt out one-liners that could be taken up for slogans or mottos for
the party cadre. His ability to liven up his party meetings attended
by thousands by things like Marathi Manas and Sons of the Soil slogans
is something that few of our politicians can match. Bal Thackeray is a
true tiger in his own right and his bit off many a small politician
who came in his way of reforms for Maharashtrians.

I actually support him this time on the topic of taking Naxal support,
but I would use it in a different manner. What is plaguing us the
corruption at the political levels. By funding the Naxalite movement
to be sharp shooters for gunning down the filth in politics we could
actually channel their movement to a more productive channel. Am sure
that the naxals are not into killing innocent people as a primary
target anyways. It is way more difficult than it sounds but it is a
viable approach. Considering that the Indian army would never stage a
coupe in India there doesn't seem to a strong enough force to go ahead
and weed out this political menace. Unless of course we manage to get
some ex US marines working for us:)

Bal Thackeray is always at his best at his rallies where even today a
large support turns up and clogs the roads in Mumbai. He still has a
massive following but then he needs to give the Sena a heart
transplant, he needs to realise that we need a bit more than communal
hysteria and rhetoric to start voting for him... or is that simply
enough even in today's Maharashtra?

23 months in Bangalore

Desi Fun(da)

Well I finally made it back home to Mumbai. I have spent the past 23 months in Bangalore working for Sun and unfortunately they had to have their sole Indian Engineering Centre in Bangalore. I had travelled to Bangalore when I was a kid and still remember the lush greenery and the vast open spaces and most importantly the calmness and lack of crowds. Things have definitely changed. The intrusion of the IT sector in this small-town-turned-city has shaken a lot of things in comparison with its past. The people out there seem to be more greedy and envious of the success of the vast number of out-of-state engineers coming into the city each day. They leech of us for everything right from rentals, to food joints and even the god-forsaken rickshawallas. It just seems that everyone is just out to get us. Imagine most of us have to deal with unbearable rents that are based purely on the whim of a landlord who is willing to move into his inhabitable basement to rent out the rest of his habitable house. Most of them pack their families into small rooms and rent out the rest, how pathetic is that. Why would someone compromise on his quality of life and worse still that of his immediate family just to earn a few more rupees. If the family needs the money it is understandable but I have seen people whose kids are in the States earning a healthy income and still going down this path. Come on how greedy can you get? Not just that the rents are ballooned up but they keep increasing the same by 5-10% each year based on pure fantasy.

I know we Indians are a bit overzealous at times but hey no one can beat the crap that is happening in Bangalore. Other than the cool weather, which is slowly disappearing with the green cover in the city, is there anything worth mentioning in the positives about Bangalore.

• Don't have good roads and
  
• The prices of fuel is the highest in the country in Karnataka.
  
• The average time spent to reach Electronics city is going up every year leading to misery of thousands of young engineers. And the same is true for any travel. One of my friends takes between 35-60mins to travel around 9kms to work.
  
• The layout of Bangalore is circular in nature which is the worst conceivable way of developing a city.
  
• Land grabbing is at its highest in the place with politicians like "humble farmer" Deve Gowda owning most of the green belt and they slowly getting them into development projects etc.
  
• Then you have these pseudo Kannadigas who just want every person in Karnataka speaking their language come what may and regardless of their economic contribution to their state.
  
• Then there is the messy excuse of an airport that couldn't even stand up to a bus depot in Mumbai.
  
• The new airport is being built in a god forsaken place more than 30kms out of Bangalore's centre and that too away from Mysore. If they had planned it on the Bangalore-Mysore highway both cities could have benefited.
  
• Then due to the burst in population a minor drizzle leads to clogging and streets are just covered with water for days together.
  
• The drainage system is the worst. Go near any hotel and the stink would drive you away before the bad service pisses you off
• No proper supply of drinking water
  
• and well we can go on an on with the crib but lets just stop at these few things
  

For what its worth I too am a Kannadiga by descent, but man thank god I am not from Bangalore. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live my life in a 30x40 or smaller house where I would rent out 2/3rds of it to complete strangers, have nearly three common walls with my neighbors and be stuck in traffic for more time than I could spend with my friends and family.

Unfortunately other places are not getting any better wrt. congestion. I have lived my life in Mumbai and hey things are getting worse with respect to traffic congestion and population out here by the hour. Earlier we used to get up and leave for school/college by around 8am and all the trains would be nearly empty. I went to the station last morning at 7.15am and the trains were overflowing. A rapid transport system is needed asap in Mumbai and it is good to know that the Metro is placed on top priority by the state government, work on it should start by September with the contract out to Reliance - Anil's half of it. My mom actually posed an intriguing question today.. where would I run away from all this if I can't stand it so soon? Any suggestions? Bachao!!!


Personal Note:
In other news I've just had a happening Saturday with special email traffic, which was unfortunately cut short by some visitors. Hopefully the weather and status on the fairer side remains suitable for the conversation to continue. Need to check if Cafe Coffee Day's claim of "a lot can happen over coffee" stands true or is just a farce:). And in my "stupid things Allen did" section I just showed The Passion to my mom. I'll be through purgatory and back during the next few weeks. Pray for me!

World Cup Fever

 

Desi Fun(da)

 

Ok so the World Cup started a week ago and my first blog entry about it is so late. But well the world up ain't started until Brasil has played a game. And so they did it yest early morning by playing Croatia and they beat them ofcourse, but only by a 1-0 goal score. I slept through the first half and missed the goal but for the entire second half I just felt Croatia was a really really good team and if they had capitalised on a couple of attempts on goal they could have stolen the game away. Then again as one of my friends said Brasil would've responsed if the Croats had taken the lead in the game.

 

Anyways the World Cup is on and to all you ppl out there have a blast watching the games while I pack up and move from Bangalore to Mumbai to Gurgaon.

 

Back to School Nostalgia

Kids everywhere in uniforms, Walking their way to school from dorms
Of sleepy faces and tied up laces, Little guys and girls up since early dawn

Some of them being the first time at school, Crying for mommy and daddy to stay
The smiling teachers are all ready, With classrooms ready to wisk them away

Of pretty faces and ponytails, Little girls name shalini and gayle
Boys called rohan and adrian, All walking up to the school atrium

The day will start with the national anthem, A speech by the priest and a nun maybe
There will be some classes and a lot of fun, With all their classmates they will run

The day started with a sleepy face, All powdered up by mommy or granny
By the time they reach their home it won't stay, Coz all of them will play in the muck today

Oh so glorious the days at school, Be it the girls from Joseph's
Or being punished to stand on the stool, Be it the crammed up buses
Or the music classes, The sports days or Be it memorizing those verses
Even the walk to and fro, Oh Jesus I miss them so

So to these kids I'd say make sure you enjoy every day
Because once you get out there is no going back
You will miss your pals and the masti you had
And then like me you would say "Wish I was in school too!" almost everyday.


I could possibly write on and on about my days at St.Xavier's hanging off banyan trees, or levelling the pitches at Don Bosco's and the fun years in junior college at St.Xavier's and then the rocking time at Fr.Agnel's.

Quitting Sun Microsystems

Edit: I keep getting google hits from people searching for some info on Guavus. Well I do work at Guavus Networks, out in Gurgaon. Drop me a line at allen.mathias@gmail.com if you would like to know anything specific other than NDA stuff ofcourse:)


Personal Note:

This weekend I decided to make my move. I put in my resignation at Sun in Bangalore while accepting an offer from a startup in Gurgaon. It has been a wonderful 2 years at Sun. I worked with a dedicated team having a wonderful set of individuals at the Diagnostics Group in Systems, developing SunVTS. The learning curve for any techie at Sun is very sharp, if you want it to be and, as long as you want to exploit the vast pool of senior and talented engineers here, who are always ready to reply to your emails or talk to you on the phone. I was especially thrilled to be a part of Sun's SEED program and I wish I could have stayed on longer to learn more from my mentor Greg and possibly try to get some more email interaction with Eric.

All in all its been a wonderful and vastly learning experience at Sun. I truely believe that Sun is getting back on its feet again and I wish I could be a part of that as it happens. My only regret here has been something personal as you might have seen in some previous posts but well balls wasn't something Sun promised I would gain while I worked here :)

So its time to move on and get some more people hooked onto the Solaris bug. Cheers.

Backpacking through Kerala - Part II - Wayanad district

As you know from my recent blogs we had just been on a 5-day trip to Kerala. And frankly I just couldn't wait to get back there, or at least get out of Bangalore. So we decided on making a trip out to Wayanad, one of the northern districts in Kerala and quite close to Bangalore as well. So we took off on a Friday evening ie 26th May and this time too just booked the onward journey tickets.

Day 1: Arrival, hunt for lodging, sight seeing and getting tired
We reached Kalpetta at around 4am and were wondering what the hell to do. Called up all the local resorts and hotels and found that every good cottage or anything close to an inhabitable spot in the wilderness was booked out for the weekend. So we got into a jeep and headed out to the next nearest town Sultan Bethrey which was around 25kms away. The ride was horrendous considering that the driver was not in his senses at all and could fall asleep anytime. We reached there and checked out The Resort and Regency. The latter turned out to be better equipped and cleaner and so he took 2 rooms for ourselves at Rs660/24hrs. After getting ready we ate like vultures at the hotel's restaurant and had a stack of plates left on one side of the table once we were done. We had a jeep waiting to get us to all the tourist spots close by. He promised to show us most of the stuff by the end of the day. We started off with the Jain temple and the headed to Eddakal caves and finally at the Vythiri caves with some minor spots along the way. The trek up the hill/mountain to the caves was the most amazing part considering that it was pouring cats and dogs all the way and the three (Alok, Himanshu and myself) of us managed to make it nearly to the top of the mountain without too much trouble. But the sad part was that the could cover was so dense that we were unable to take any pics of the high spots and hence no substantial evidence to the claim that we made. Anyways it was a whole lot of fun. The waterfalls that we headed out to next was also equally great. Here the trek was downhill and the heavy rain had cause all of us to be wet and soggy at the toes. But the thunderous pour of the waterfalls was enough to rejuvenate us and Himanshu even made it out to the distant rocks to find his Heman sword :)

For lunch we halted at a local joined and hogged ourselves to some wonderful kerala paratha's, chappathis, ghee rice and curries. We were all stuffed and surprised to see the bill which was grand totalled at Rs62, and yes that was for the whole meal.

Later for dinner we revisited the Regency's restaurant and tried out their chicken and fish items which turned out to be really good. So again a lavish mean with dessert and the works. We went overboard with the milkshakes that we ordered to the room later though:)

Day2: To sleep or to visit the sanctuary?
Well the previous day was really tiring for us. But before going to bed we had called the jeep at 7am to take us out to the wild life sanctuary. At around 6.30am when we woke up, even though the alarm was for 5.50, we were in two minds as to whether we enjoy the sleep of peace in that blissful rainy weather or head out. After some talk we just decided to make the most of our trip by visiting the next place. So we had our breakfast and headed out the sanctuary. The ride was good this time and the rain had just heeded so it made the climate just perfect with little vehicular traffic around. The sanctuary turned out to be a damp squid. We saw a few elephants and tons of deer/bison around the place but no wild cats to satiate our appetite. We hung out on the sides of the jeep the whole time and enjoyed the bumpy ride in there along with large intakes of fresh air. Well maybe that was heavy breathing due to the apprehension that there might be a wild cat right behind us in mid-flight about to take a chunk out of one of our asses. Then in an impromptu decision we decided to head out to Kurva island which was around 50kms away. That too turned out to be a damp squid since river surrounding the island was overflowing and the way was blocked. So no Kurva island either. Just as an FYI it is supposed to be 6kms in circumference with just some tribal inhabitants.

And yes on our way we did stop at a small town for breakfast. There again we hogged ourselves silly. I had a liver plate as well and we nearly tried all the breakfast dishes in the restaurant. And oh the grand bill came up to Rs55 for that and yes for all the four of us.

So we got back to the hotel early. We made sure we packed everything up and were ready to leave at 4pm towards Mysore. We somehow squeesed ourselves onto the overcrowded KeralaSRTC bus and managed to make it to Mysore by 8pm. We had a sumptuous meal at Dasprakash (supposedly the creator of the dosai) and got onto the semi-luxury bus headed to Bangalore at around 10pm. We reached back to this god-forsaken place at and were in bed by nearly 1am.


Closure
And there ends another wonderful journey into Kerala. Wayanad is a wonderful place and supposedly has the second largest amount of rainfall in India after Cherapunji. The place is wonderful and has some tea plantations as well, though not as beautiful as Munnar. There are nice places to visit and I have heard that staying at one of the resorts in Vythiri is worth the 7-8k/night for a cottage.

As I have mentioned the food is cheap and tasty as well. The people are friendly but very few of them know English or Hindi. So it seems that it is not a spot visited by outsiders as a tourist destination. So it makes it all the more appealing since the crowds are pretty low where ever you go. But don't be surprised if all that changes pretty soon. The total expenses for the trip turned out to be Rs.2000/head for the four of us which was per budget.

All in all Wayanad is a wonderful place and I suggest you take a day to just eat, sleep and relax while the wonderful torrential-like rain hits the rooftop.


link to the pics of the trip at yahoo photos

Quota Facts

The past few weeks have probably seen the largest single movement in India's post-independence history. Students from various disciplines and institutions combined with their alumni have stood up for their rights and prayed that common sense prevail in this mayhem of quota politics bought about by the corrupt Arjun Singh. There have been protests all through the country and this has mobilised the student population against the Congress party and its tactics of using the caste system as an agenda to gain votes.

As I said before this is a sweet sorrow for me. On one hand we have seen that students and the public in general have become fed up with the corruption and under-handed tactics of our octogenarian politicians and are ready to take a stand together. On the other hand we have seen that just this is not enough. There needs to be a mass mobilisation of citizens to overthrow, literally, these morons who claim to guard our Constitution and our Constitutional Rights, while most of them don't have the brain-power to draft a 2-page memo.

On one of the talk-shows of "Headlines Today" (another of the long list of new NEWS channels here) the ex-director of IIT-Madras was present and he provided some interesting facts and analogys which I wanted to list here. Some other facts from other sources are added in too.
*** The IIT's have the standard 24odd% reservation for SC/ST/OBC currently but these seats are filled on a reduced merit level. So the candidates of these communities have to give the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination). So if there are 3000 available seats the IIT's take the 6000th ranked student's marks and a percentage of that is used as the cut-off for the reserved students. Yet a handful of these seats are utilised each year. Moreover if any of these students are found to need some sort of educational coaching the IITs provide a 1-year course for them to prepare themselves and get into these institutes. And even then these seats lie vacant.
*** By fact it has been recorded that the average family income of the students entering the IIM-A based on reservation is greater than that of the students entering it in the general/non-reserved category.
*** A perfect analogy presented by another member in the audience, an AIIMS alumni was based on India's polio problems and the various initiatives lead by the government. He said something along these lines "We can eradicate polio by having vaccines available to children at birth and gift them a happy and normal life. In a similar way we can give equal opportunity to oppressed classes by providing them with the right and access to basic education. However what the government is currently suggesting with the quota system is similar to saying that they don't want to provide the vaccines but instead they will give free crutches to the kids who have polio once they turn 21"
*** To provide the promised increase in general category seats are promised by the government it would take 8,000cr and minimum of 3-5 years for it to be effective. This was from a report given in by a committee appointed by the government itself.
*** IIT Bombay release figures that it would take it nearly 325cr and 3-5 years to increase its capacity and get the resources to accommodate these new seats.

Some more facts
*** The women's reservation bill has been flying around the Parliament for decades now. There has been no action taken on it at all. I doubt if they would be able to find the original draft if asked for.
*** There is no such reservation in Parliament for OBCs
*** Arjun Singh is a crappy old corrupt maniac who can't stand or walk by himself and with no strand of common sense in a 1km radius around him

Jago India Jago

DaVinci Code Controversy

There seems to be some sort of an unholy concoction brewing out here with some priests protesting against the release of the DaVinci Code movie being released in India. It seems really suprising that the Catholic community here, which I am a part of, has chosen to protest the movie in such a way. Usually we are a much more docile and if I may say so, a very lazy community at times. But these protests seem to be the work of some priests who have just had a dash too much of the bubbly at mass. Did they not notice that the Vatican itself has decided not to grant too much weight to this issue with Dan Brown because speaking about it is just going to get people listening and getting the damn thing more publicity. But no our Indian priests seem to have been offended a bit too much by this. Well its a movie afterall so chill:)

Anyways did they protest the book or they numerous other literatures out there that have various consipiracy theories. Anyways its alteast good to know that the Indian Christian/Catholic community is awake for a change.

Lacking the common medium of communication

While noticing these protests by the various sections of the student community I was on one hand thrilled to see the massive protests against the corrupt Arjun Singh and his meaningless actions, while on the other hand very much stunned by the way in which these very students were treated by the police. Though student protesters worldwide have always lead radical changes and sometimes revolutions in their countries there is one thing that separates us from all the other countries - A common medium or language of communication.

The range of languages and cultures in India is so large that is feels almost impossible to have a vociferous and motivating leader who can move the masses from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. The communication barriers are so high that it would be a mind blowing task to motivate the masses and pass on a common message to all of them without being lost in translation etc. It is such a daunting task to even dream about.

At the same time think of Hitler who through effective communication of his party's and indirectly his agenda managed to motivate the whole of Germany into various criminal acts, while beating the drums of nationalism and the Aryan bloodline. All this he achieved by effectively communicating his thoughts through Mein Kemf. Would that ever be possible here? Because that is what we need right now ie a full fledged revolt against the corrupt politicians and their families and weed them out of the fabric of new India. The students have risen and I hope all of us stand with them soon.

Anti-Reservation protests intensify

The anti-reservation protests by medical students, supported by various sections of the medical fraternity, has intensify with the All India Medical Association calling in a nation-wide stir to protest the Quota bill to be delivered to the Cabinet and the wrongful and lawless behaviour of the Delhi and Mumbai police, which have lathi charged peacefully protesting students. The lathi charges have been repeatedly shown live on various news channels and caused a lot of unrest in the educated classes.

Throughout the world in various key protests which have gained nation-wide momentum the student protesters have played a key and significant role in getting the masses involved. Be it the Tianneman Square protests in China or the Anti-War protests against the Vietnam War in the USA. student protesters have been at the forefront of it all. There is a similarity out here as well. We are seeing the masses rallying behind these students and demanding that there be a meaningful dialogue between the blood-sucking and vote-hungry septuagenarian Arjun Singh and the representatives of the student bodies.

With reservations for the OBC classes being proposed for nearly 50+ and more it seems that the Government of India is keen on getting India back to the stone ages. I totally agree with providing a level playing field for the underprivileged and deprives sections of Indian society by providing them with opportunities at the primary and secondary level of education and possibly at various government colleges and government jobs as well. At the same time I feel that the opportunities being given to these classes is being misused in many cases by people faking caste certificates and gaining entry into prestigious institutions on the basis caste rather than true merit. This is totally unacceptable. Like I pointed out in one of my previous postings I would totally support a low-interest or even a 0% interest loan for eduction of any such meritious students from these sections of our society but vanilla reservation without any regard for merit is totally uncalled for. We already have a 25%+ reservation system in many of the educational institutes and this is definitely sufficient. Moreover the government should be able to guarantee that this fake OBC/SC/ST certificate menace is put to an end.

Basic Investment Tip

Desi Fun(da) ... and more.

Investing is always a pain in the ass. But for the regular anand (desi version of regular joe) there is nothing better than a fixed deposit to save up all the hard earned rupees. While I was in state college I got into the habit of saving up and converting parts of my savings account into CD's ie Certificates of Deposit ie fixed deposits, which invariably have a decent rate of return. Thanks to Abby at PNC Bank who really helped me out with all this. They have this simple advice on how to maximize your returns in a FD scheme. Look at the
PNC Bank- Building a Ladder of Savings Certificates for their solid advice.

Backpacking through Kerala

Desi Fun(da) ...

I just got back from a 5 day backpacking trip through God's own country - Kerala with a couple of my friends. It was a wonderful trip with just nothing negative to say about the entire trip through the wonderful southwestern Indian state of Kerala.

Day1: Bus departs at 5.30
We packed off on an evening bus towards Kanyakumari with the intention of spending a few hours there and visiting the Vivekananda Rock to attain some self realisation and stuff. All packed and ready we boarded a regular KPN bus which suprisingly provided a larger legroom than Kingfisher airlines or any Volvo bus. We had our dinner at some place in TamilNadu which would be better left untold.

Day2: Plans change. On to Kovallam
A good sleep later we wake up to be told that the bus is running real late and instead of reaching Kanyakumari at 8am it would be there by 11-12noon. So we weigh the options and decide on skipping Kanyakumari in favor of having a day to spare to visit another location within Kerala. So we get down at Nagarcole and  get a connecting bus to Trivandrum. The bus reaches us to Trivandrum from where we move on to the East Fort bus stand to catch our bus to Kovallam beach. It is around 15kms from Trivandrum and the mini bus takes us 30mins to get there. As soon as we step out with out bags some locals rush to us to ask if we needed some rooms and heck we did. We followed them to the other side of the beach and after checking the alternatives decide on picking up a small cottage a straw throw away (yeah stone's throw is too cliche) from the beach. We tried to bargain but the guy wouldn't budge from Rs500/night and well that was a bargain in itself. The sun was blazing by now and the three of us drop down after a cold shower.

The first sight of the beach is just breathtaking. The ocean appears from within the dense coconut trees surrounding the beach and then the clear light greenish water with its striking white waves just hits your eyes with cold refreshment. The beach is well maintained and has a decent sprinkling of lifeguards to keep watch. The afternoon usually is the time for the foreigners to turn up for their suntan in the blistering heat:)

In a few minutes we get hungry and decide on checking out the hang outs along the beach front. After walking the stretch we decide on sitting down at a place called Beatles (well more so because of a hot blonde who was there and left as soon as I entered). The beer we ordered turned out to be just chilled perfection for use weary travellers and we were back to normalcy after a couple of gulps. Later we decided on just chilling on the beach played some football and hit the sack for a few hours again. We then decided on giving our hosts a try and checked out one dish on their dinner menu. This made us return out to Beatles were we stuffed ourselves with fish and some amazing lassi:)

While taking an early morning walk I reached the other side of the beach and saw the local fishermen pulling in a huge net caste out really far off from the beach. I ran back got my camera and woke the guys and came back for some pics. It seems that this is how they did the fishing and the catch used to be quite good and sufficient. However with the larger boats and fishing vessels coming in the catch by this traditional method has been deteriorating and there is not much that these poor fishermen can do to compete with the big pockets.

Day3: Let's get to the backwaters of Kumarkom
So at around 10 we packed up again and headed towards our next destination, the backwaters of Kerala. The much talked about and anticipated part of our trip was nearing. We went back to Trivandrum and headed towards the bus station. On the way we had our breakfast at this amazing architectural marvel of a place called the Indian Coffee House, right next to the bus stand. We decided on making the trip to Kollam and then Kottayam to try the government conducted backwater ride from Kollam to Allepey. We took the bus to Kollam but on reaching there were informed that the ride starts at 10.30 in the morning and takes nearly 8 hours to complete. The KSTDC guy there was informative enough to tell us that there was a train leaving for Kottayam in the next few minutes and we could catch the same instead of a tiring and longer bus ride. We made it in time and had a wonderful 4 hour train ride to Kottayam. We reached there at around 5 in the evening and enquired at Kumarkom from the local restaurant where we had our tea. He was also informative enough to dig up a number of his friend who rents out places in Kottayam. We spoke to him and he quoted Rs1000/night so we decided to take our chances by making the trip there. We reached Kumarkom by bus, a 45min ride, and there too were greeted by locals who were trying to scout out people wanting rooms for the night. We saw the KTDC rooms, Rs600/night, and those rented out by another local guy, Rs500/night.

At this time we got into a conversation with a local motorboat owner cum guide, Thambi, who took to us and at the end of a rather short conversation offered us his a room in his house for the evening and that too at no cost. We decided on Rs300/night but paid him Rs400 the next day. He also promised to make us the best fish we had ever tasted so on we went to the local fisher monger from whom we got 4 fresh fish of 3 varieties for just Rs110 and vegetables for avvial for Rs50. Off we went to his house.

A typical southern house covered in red tiles he offered us any room in the house that we wanted and ordered:) his wife to cook all that stuff for us. The four of us then had some freshly plucked mangoes and went off for a walk soon realising that we were entering one of the poshest resorts in Kumarkom ie Coconut Lagoon. Though we did not enter into their private premises we got a pretty good view of the area their room and cottages, massage and yoga areas, their compost and vermiculture cultivation tubs, their rainwater harvesting and waste recycling etc etc.

Then sitting in the dark surrounded by the backwaters and India's largest lake on one side and paddy fields on the other we enjoyed some fireworks in the distance and a tingling conversation with a local security guard. We returned an hour later to find a hot meal ready to be relished. The fish was simply superb especially the lake fish Polliere I think it is called. And the final part was the avvial which was even better. Now all we needed was a good bath and what better way to do that then take a dip in the backwaters itself. Thambi after being threatened by his father decided against letting us in but got us knee deep and poured buckets of water on us. What an amazing way to end the day.

Day4: The backwaters beckon
We were rearing to go and get into a traditional boat. So we had spoken to Thambi's friend and cohort and booked his row boat for the morning. He came in sharply at 8 while we were eating MrsThambi's delicious rice steam cakes. We said our goodbyes and got into the boat.

In the traditional black boat we too picked up the oars and started pitching in. We got into the bird sanctuary area and saw a few birds. I don't remember any one other than the snake bird and Siberian storks that were around and well of course I saw a real life kingfisher bird as well. We rowed around for the next two hours and the blistering heat was taking its toll. So we got out at the closest bund and walked to the bus stop and boarded the bus back to Kottayam. Now we were on our way to Munnar.

The bus ride to Munnar was really hectic. Getting one of the hardest seats amongst all the buses during the trip the behinds were cursing us. We finally made it to Munnar at around 9pm only to find that all the rooms in a 20kms radius were booked. So off we went to Adimali which was 30kms down (and where we wanted to get off in the first place). Anyways we got a room out there Rs400/night and dozed off after a light dinner of veg rice and curry.

Day5: Back to Munnar and taking the room with a million dollar view
We got up late and went off to the bus stand. Had some tea and got into the bus to Munnar. On the way up we saw this amazing hotel perched over the valley with a view to die for and kissing the constantly flowing mist all around. It seemed like it was fairyland.

Anyways we got there at around 12 and and then started room hunting. Again the local auto rickshaw guy helped by showing us some of the cheaper (within our budget) accommodation. But I guess we couldn't get the hotel we just saw out of our heads. So off we went to Copper Castle. The place was as good as it looked. A friendly manager even struck a good deal for us within the fixed price room Rs2970/night and we were finally satisfied.

We took the same rickshaw guy, Subramani, to show us the local spots. And just FYI do not order fish at a hill station:) Anyways it seems there are three different tours possible in Munaar, because of 3 different routes to that place. Since half of the day was done we picked the shortest one and got the cameras out. We made it to the picture point, echo point, a couple of dams, the Indo-Swiss project and stopped at all the scenic spots in between for pictures. We took 10 times the pics we did at the other two destinations we had been to. Munnar is essentially a tea growing location and you will see tons of tea plants all over the hills making it look like a green carpet with black lines.

Subramani left us at the market and luckily for him we paid him Rs600 instead of Rs500 that we had agreed on because of someone's ageing memory:) We then headed to the spice shops and picked up some fresh tea, spices and oils before calling it a day, sans dinner, and retreating to our shahi accommodation.

Day6: Leaving God's own country
We had planned an early start to the day but the weather turned out to keep us in bed a bit longer. After getting up at around 8 we went out to explore the nearby area. The mist had cleared off from in front of our hotel and the valley was visible in all its wonderful green glory. The view was awesome and camera went on clicking. The breakfast served by the hotel was fresh and healthy and kept us going for the rest of the day.

And of course while there I made sure I got an Ayurvedic full body massage. It was really good with a seasoned professional and traditional masseur who got the oils into all my pores and made sure that my body loosened up along the massage. An amazing experience and a must do. It took nearly 45 minutes and cost around Rs600 + a healthy tip. Thanks to Paul Martin at Copper Castle for that massage.

We checked out of the hotel at exactly 12noon ie the checkout time and then moved towards the bus stand. On learning that the next bus for Udmalpet was 2hrs away we decided to hunt for some toddy ie kalll (in malayalam). The local shop turned out to be closed so we headed to a nearby village Annachal which was around 15kms away. We reached there only to get some 4-5hr old toddy so we just stuck to a glass of it and moved back to the bus stand.

The trip to Udmalpet was wonderful. Barely any cars taking this route because the roads are narrow and well you are moving to TamilNadu. The best part is that the route takes you through the Chinnar Conservation Park (Kerala) followed by the Indira Gandhi National Park (TamilNadu). A good 4hr ride later we took a bus to Coimbatore from Udmalpet which took us 2hrs. Luckily we managed to get a regular KSRTC bus from Coimbatore to Bangalore which started at nearly 12midnight and reached Bangalore at 8.30am in the morning the next day.

I was back at work today and well its dull to be back here in the city. I enjoyed Kerala, the people, the places, the climate and the food. I was really disappointed because I did not get to see or meet any traditional Malayale girls who seem just so perfect:) Maybe they were informed of my whereabouts and planned their days accordingly:(

Suggestions to Travellers
+ Plan Well
+ Take 10 days and see the entire state if possible
+ Rent a car if possible
+ If travelling by state buses be ready to hear your behinds crying on some occasion
+ Travel lite
+ Have a ayurvedic massage
+ Visit the back waters
+ Talk in English when asking for directions
+ Eat the fish at the Beatles in Kovallam
+ Try some toddy

Suggestions to Kerala Government
+ Wake up
+ Get CNG/LNG buses to save God's own country
+ Start working on the roads connecting these amazing locations


All in All
We touched all bases in Kerala - the beach, the backwaters and a beautiful hill station, all in 5 days and we made it back here to Bangalore, all that in a measly budget of less than Rs5000 per person. There is nothing to complain about in Kerala. Kerala is full of different types of churches all over the place. Built lavishly and in great love towards Christ. The number of coconut trees out here are mind boggling and make a pretty picture any time of the year. Everything seems to in place. Picture perfect scenery, really great food, marvelous locales and exceptionally friendly people. God's own country is a title befitting not only the land but also the people of Kerala.







link to yahoo photos for the pics

Kingfisher going in for the kill

Desi Fun(da) ... and more.

As you all must know by now Kingfisher Airlines is my carrier of choice in the hot Indian aviation market. I love the fact that they have brand new aircraft, which gives me an added sense of safety, the fact that they have the IA engineering servicing these aircraft, who are the largest and best set of aircraft engineers around, and I love their service with a smile approach aswell.

From all the recent news we have been seeing/hearing it seems that Mr.Mallya is on a buying spree of Airbus aircraft for his airline. A320's, A319's and even A380's and now its heard he has gone for the A340-500 as well. I still wonder what the hell he is going to do with so many planes considering that he cannot fly overseas until around 2010, with the 5 year minimum prerequisite put in by government of India for a carrier to be eligible to fly abroad? But with the huge backlog of orders that Airbus has it will be able to deliver most of the long range aircraft only by around 2008-2010. Which is perfect timing for Mr.Mallya. He will be sitting pretty with his fleet as and when the government removes the stupid rule or when he qualifies for it in 2010, whichever comes first. By then the airline will have enough experience within the country and will be damn prepared to meet international standards which I have to say are not met by any Indian airline post the TATA-AI era. It will be great to wait and watch how things pan out in this region especially since the air is getting a crowded place to be right now in India.

Now all that needs to be seen is whether or not all these wonderful things about Kingfisher Airlines is actually raking in the moolah or not. We will be able to judge that once they become a listed company. Their IPO is scheduled to be out soon.

TCS my breath away

Well the behemoths have spoken. Infosys hit the 2billionUSD mark and then TCS came out with its results showing that it had just missed the 3billionUSD mark by a whisker (figures at $2.97B). Not to be left behind TCS went out and declared a 1:1 bonus for its investors and I hope that they have a wonderful dividend coming our way soon too. In the next day of trade the share price hit an all time high playing around the Rs.2050 mark during intraday trade. And of course there was the usual analysis and data hitting the news channels. CNBC went out of the way and had an exclusive interview with Feroze (Nadrivala not sure of the surname) the head of corporate affairs. A flamboyant speaker who was ready with all the figures and facts and a sound temperament to handle the dumb CNBC journos that he had to face that early in the morning.

All in all the season has been ripe in the IT sector for the Indian companies and all have seen a steady increase in the number of clients. And more lucrative high end deals being snatched by these companies shows that they are able to compete with the global giants along the lines of Accenture et al. With recruiting in these companies on the roll there is a shortage for talent in the high end services segments and they will continue to command a high premium for their services.

That said there seems to be a dearth for aeronautic professionals in the growing aviation industry in our country and everyone is scouting out for talent. You can guess their desperation when they say "Senior ..." and the requirement states that a year of experience is all that you need to qualify to apply:). Well let the good times roll.

Apologies if you found the title a way too cocky this time:) I liked it though.. hehe

Bangalore, Kannadigas and Riots

Last week Bangalore saw some of the worst cases of mob fury and public nuisance witnessed in the subcontinent. There were many aspects that surround that violence and these issues have been highlighted pretty well by the media. Just to give a headsup it started off by the death of a legendary actor in these parts of the woods Dr.Rajkumar. He was a legend in his own right and did a lot of good to forward the intentions of the local people aka the Kannadigas. He was seen as a leader amongst them and a very iconic figure to say the least. From what I have seen and heard of the person he was a pretty good guy, not politically motivated and totally non confrontationalist in his attitude right to his core. His passing away bought in a lot of people from all over the state who came peacefully to pay their respects. However this large stream of people was not expected by the local authorities and miscreants entered in torching some buses, causing a lot of damage to public and private property, putting a lot of loss on the local economy and eventually and probably the worst part being the indelible tarnish splashed on the image of Bangalore and our country.

Now all that said and done there seems to be something terribly wrong around here. Like the Sainiks in Maharashtra there are local groups who are of the opinion that outsiders aka non Kannadigas should "have" to learn the local tongue if they want to be out here. This opinion was voiced by a local, and supposedly, eminent journalist whose name I seem to forget***. His reasoning was that in France people can't do without learning French and in England people can't do without learning English. That is the word of the land is very important. I wish I was near him to smack him. Some of my counter arguments
- Essentially the analogy with France was totally uneducated. France is loosing out on investments that do not depend on the local economy due to their chauvinism. Bangalore on the other hand is based on outsourced work.
- The image of Kannadigas by us outsiders (I wish I was one even though I am not) is of the local thugs aka auto drivers taking advantage of everyone, followed by the land/home owners who charge a fortune to rent out their homes to outsiders etc. They don't paint a pretty picture of themselves so what would make anyone aspire to be like them. Noone want to be like you and therefore noone wants to take the trouble to learn your lingo either.
- Moreover the dufus made all his arguments in English on a English news channel. That shows the importance and need of English in a global economic scenario.
- And does he know that there are about a 1000+ yes one thousand plus official dialect prevalent within India today. If we need to bring reform within the country the only way is by having one common language for us all. And FOR HIS INFORMATION that language is the national language Hindi. Imagine a businessman going all through India and needing to learn the local language to fill in his paperwork. The masses will never realise the benefits of the booming economy with such an backward school of thought.

If I employed him I would fire this columnist.

***Such people by my lingo are termed as "educated illiterates". People who have formal education and possibly quite a lot of it but have not been able to utilise their minds, or whatever source of intellect they may have, to understand and put that education to some effective purpose. Will try to find his name but he is not worth mentioning in the positive.