I was going through different blogs on people’s description of holi celebrations when I found Manish Chauhan’s Blog on Holi. http://manishchauhan.blogspot.com/2005/03/aaj-biraj-mein-holi-hai-rasia.html His blog reminded me of my own childhood Holi days – Holi Dehan and Holi Milan were the most awaited days of the year for me too. But apart form the colours and sweets – Holi for me had a special attraction – a chance to showcase and exercise my ‘event management skills’. At our place there used to be a community dinner and cultural show in the evening on Holi (rang waali). This was time when we children used to prepare a small show with skits and games for the adults in our mohalla . Some adult also used to participate by their singing/acting performances. I must credit many of my ‘project management’ skills to the experience of organising Holi Dehan and these Holi evening shows when I was the ‘bhaiiyaa’ of the Mohalla [Incidentally I was known as dada even among my friends during my ...

Wonder If any of you have ever heard of this Movie; nice one! I just chanced upon it on the Movie Server and thought why not!! But it really turned out to be a fantastic flick ... and had a great message in it ... what's more is that what it said is what I myself have been feeling for the past few days. Here's the link http://www.ingoodcompanymovie.com/ Its about this 52 year old salesman Dan Foreman(Dennis Quad) who works for a sports magazine but suddenly finds himself demoted and being 'bossed' over by a 26 year old Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) when the magazine is taken over by a another company. At first this new exec is all booming with ideas about the company's new 'synergy' strategy. 'Synergy' is shown as some shitty management jargon which is far from the company's real-life business. While during the movie Dan has to lay off his old buddies while not agreeing with the company's new policies and has a hard time; the end makes things ...

A very interesting discussion is ‘ON’ on Manish Chauhan and Ramanand’s blogs. [ http://manishchauhan.blogspot.com/2005/02/rising-in-response-to-ramanands-post.html ] [ http://quatrainman.blogspot.com/ 2005_02_01_quatrainman_archive.html#110934441279858050 ] The discussion is about the gap between fact and fiction in relation to the movie ‘The Rising’ – supposedly made on Mangal Pandey’s life. Such questions have always been raised whenever Indian Cinema has dared to make films based on real life instead of fiction. Recently the Supreme Court had stayed release of Black-Friday (made on Mumbai Bomb Blasts) because it used real names of victims and accused in the Blasts. On the other hand just see how different Hollywood is – movies like Apollo 13, The Rookie, Titanic and many others not only do well but go on to become classics. Then there are movies like Saving Private Ryan, Three Kings and Forrest Gump which are made in a backdrop of a real life event like a war and are widely apprecia...

Action?... no dudes I am not missing Amitabh's Angry-Young-Man-Movies. Today was Sansmaran the annual Alumni-Fest of NITIE. Though we (PGDIM10) are yet to be officially declared alumni but since we no more attend classes so we did behave like 'real' alumni :D. It was great to see so many alumni from batches as early as PGDIE 7 (1979) and PGDIM1(1994). Many of them are the whose-who of the corporate world now and some are on their way to become so !! I should commend the junior batch for making the event a big success. They really worked hard and it showed in their performance. Apart from flawless management of logistics there were a stage-performances and among those worth mentioning are Solo Dance by Sugandha Agrawal on the song 'Jiya jale' ; and the play by the four - Vidya, Sastha, Divakar and Dinkar. It was really a great script and the fact that it was conceived by these guys themselves makes it all the more great. The play was a comedy on a dialog sequence bet...

I have always felt that love can never be at first sight and love is in no way related to attraction or liking. It has more to do with knowing a person in detail and accepting him/her with the negative as well as positive features of him/her. An exactly reciprocal behavior of love is 'intimacy' - you tend to be intimate with people who truly 'love' you. Since these people accept you as you are hence you can behave naturally without qualifications with them. Intimacy is closely related to Love. I read a very meaningful article in TOI on intimacy yesterday. Some excerpts are quoted below (couldn't get the link 'coz it was on epaper and not on indiatimes) :- "What intimacy is not; And also what it is . . . . . " 'All beginnings are lovely' - a French proverb reminds us, but intimacy is not about that initial 'Velcro stage' of relationships. It is when we stay in a relationship over time whether by necessity or choice that our capacity for...

Today as I was traveling through Mumbai I saw the tall glass buildings and thoughts came back to me when I dreamt of working in these places and doing some great stuff. Now that I am an Advisory at KPMG, I am working in not one but with many companies who have such offices - I will be interacting with CIO's, CTO's and other senior people. But as happens most of the times - this success has lost its sheen. I am today a person whom many admire and many envy - but all this professional success has also raised many questions within me. I have lived a life of an individualist (not selfish at all but you can say my locus of control is internal) - I did what I felt was correct, I stood to my own ideals and ideas, was always in competition with myself and never thought what others will think. At the same time since I think that living for others is 'real' living so my attitude was never selfish. But somehow I think I have failed to make personal bonds - I have friends, many fri...

No. . . I am not getting enrolled into Shiv Sena but I have just read the following article in TOI http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1019524.cms I too agree with what is there in this article. But let me be a bit logical - why do we have such days - Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day etc etc. Mainly because in the fast paced life of today we tend to neglect the people who matter most in our life - our parents, our friends and to those who are married their spouse. And so these days so that we remember them atleast once a year. But do these days continue to serve this purpose? Everyone from greeting-card companies to restaurants have made a business opportunity out of these days. All this forced jollity does not make you happy from inside. Isn't making you and your companions happy the real purpose of such events? And more so with the tremendous advances in Information Technology I see no reason why our busyness should any more be a problem? I can t...

Watched the film BLACK today - a movie about a deaf (and dumb) and blind girl and her teacher. It is good to see that the general public is also exited about such contemporary cinema than just song-and-dance masala movies. There are some dialogues in this movie that really touched me from inside . . . "Its not eyes that dream, the mind dreams .. and so even the blind can dream" - very true . Even medically its some electrical signals that reach our brain that cause the illusion on pictures which we see as dreams. These signals like real vision don't originate at the eyes but in our mind. "Black does not stand for misery and frustration - it is the color of knowledge, the color of wisdom .... the color of the graduation robe" - how true again !! Even today most text that we read whether in print or electronic is Black. Black indeed is the color of knowledge !!

I must make a confession! Throughout my NITIE life I was of the opinion that MBA was merely an exercise to segregate the smart ones from the lot and B-schools are merely providing placement services to students and selection services to companies. But I WAS WRONG ! As much as MBA studies seem useless and hot air while you are in the institute - their impact is visible only after you join the industry. I always felt that engineering had a more 'learning' content but MBA too has a lot of content. I have been spending time doing information audits and helping the financial audit team at KPMG as an IRM expert (?? IRM? Expert?) since the past 3-4 days. The reason why I could solve their issues, more than my knowledge of systems, was my knowledge of business. It is the business knowledge acquired during MBA that helped my relate which IT system could and in what manner and to what extent affect the financial statement of the company. Terms like BOM (Bill Of Materials) which the Audit...

Haa!! 3 grilling days at Office !! I have finally found time to report that I have successfully completed my 1st 3 days of professional life at KPMG and will be moving to a client assignment from tomorrow. Will have more to write on my work and workplace a few days later. For now its something else on my mind. . . . After many days I got time to read TOI http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com and I found the edit page very very interesting. Firstly was a View-counterview on the popularity and innovation in the search engine space. View: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1015226.cms Counterview: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1015225.cms The number of mobile users in India crossed 5 million today - i.e. 5% of the Indian populace is now using mobile phones. And have a look at the following article This is the third thing I read in TOI's edit page. Its about a new dimension to evolution. The evolution of self replicating digital programs or Digital-ev...