Friday, June 29, 2007

Another week ...

The week ending today was my third week at office. I have not written much about my office in the blog. Guess its time to do so.

I work in a consulting company in Delhi. We consult for both government and private parties on infrastructure. The division i work primarily consists of people from my campus. Its kind of new in the campus with seniors from batch of 2005 and 2006 before us. I work in vertical which deals with real estate and SEZs.

My first two days in the office had gyaan sessions or induction , in office parlance. The third day i was introduced to the project. Fourth day i did some work and the next day i had the client presentation. Yes, within the first week i had a client presentation.

From then on i have been working on the same thing. Had a site visit too. Have got most of the information that i require. But it seems there is a lack of direction for me to proceed. My boss is sick and my super boss is too busy with other demanding assignments. So that leaves me all alone in a project that i don't have much idea about.

But everything said and done, the experience has been good. Yup, So far so good.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thomas L. Friedman ...

Excerpts from Friedmans' commencement speech at Rensselaer. Check the below post.

First, What you learned in college really matters.
Second, what you learned to imagine in college matters even more.
Third, how you implement, how you implement what you imagine is going to matter most of all.

In the future, the most important competition is the one between you and your own imagination.

If it’s not happenin’, it’s because you’re not doin’ it.

“Always work like you don’t need the money, always fall in love like you’ve never been hurt, always sing like nobody’s listening and always, always live like it’s heaven on earth.”
- Mark Twain

“Tom, I know why you’re an optimist. It’s because you’re short and you can only see that part of the glass that’s half full.”

Commencement Speech

Following are few of the good commencement speeches in recent times. My friend suggested me to go through this.

The first one is by Thomas L Friedman at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute.

http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=1514

The above link is Infosys Chief Mentor N R Narayan Murthy's commencement speech at the New York University ( Stern School of Business ) on May 9, 2007.

Interesting articles. Worth every second you spend on it.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Topics of interest

Currently, i am pursuing certain subjects / topics because of the interest i have in them or just to satiate my curiosity. Here they are :

Indian Emergency
History of the nation and the world
Private equity
Consultancy
Entrepreneurship
Relationship
Expectations
Sports

As you must have noticed i hav a wide range of interests. I feel that the variety just helps in shifting my thoughts and to remain sane :).
The first two are out of sheer curiosity. I got interested in emergency after i read the book 'The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini, it describes what people go through and the trauma they experience in the hands of absolute anarchy. I was very much moved by what i had heard. The next day i saw 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", a hindi movie which touches upon Indian emergency, the movie forced me do start diggin about the subject. The more i dug, the more i wanted. I wanted to know everything about it, thats the way i caught the interest.

The next three are entirely due to the education i have had and to facilitate me to make most of my life.

The next two have kept me busy when i am all alone, in the last two-three years. I still don't know how to handle , to react, to respond to these. I guess i am better now than what i was.. but it is still not up to the mark. Whats the mark, i don;t know that too.

Sports are my passion... they were before.. they will still be for a long time to come... i have to start playin squash and find a track to run... i want to take part in the marathon again... i like swimmin a lot.. with the current weather.. it will be awesome to swim in the mornin... got to find a place to play and to swim .. to relive the best days again.. :) ..

Monday, June 25, 2007

Heaven of Freedom

I came across this master piece from Rabindranath Tagore in the book "IT happened in India" by Kishore Biyani, the pantaloon chief. This verse has so much of meaning and it is still apt in todays life too. Once you go through the verse , you just cant help but ponder .

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free..
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

My 50th Post

Well after 3 yrs of on and off flirting with my blog... i have reached a milestone ... as the subject says this is my 50th post... i wanted to publish something else but i happened to notice that i had made 49 posts till date... i think this week has got something to do with numbers... this week is supposed to be the 25th week of the year ( well it happens once every yr too ).. and "The Week" magazine had published some 25 unsolved mysteries of india in the past 25 yrs ... and "India Today" had a cover story on the nation in the past 60 yrs.. so with me readin all this stugg.. i culdn't resist the temptation to contribute one from my side to the number game... and here it goes my 50th post .... :)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Dehradun Trip

Yup, I had been to dehradun on Thursday... well it was a one day trip and i could not go to mussoorie. It was not a leisure trip but a business trip. As a consultant one has to visit very good places for totally different reasons.

I always Dehradun was a hill station, somewhere in northern India. For me all the hill stations shimla, nainital, darjeeling, mussoorie etc.. is a pack of places which are up there in some part of north india, which is a night journey from Delhi. Before i moved to Delhi, i had made plans to visit all these places during my stay along with my friends. But i did not the opportunity is going to come so soon. Here i went to Dehradun, to get a relief from the scorching heat of Delhi.

The drive was good, since the roads are much better, with hardly any traffic at 4 in the morning. Its a straight road that goes on and on. It had rained in Delhi few days back, as a result of which, the land on either side of the road were covered with lush green grass. Early morning, when you are driving towards the east, u see the orange sun in ur eyes and the light is somewhat different. One can see the rays passing through the fully grown trees with the dew drops reflecting whatever light that falls on them, on a long black road with green grass on either side... thats a scene worth watchin and one cannot help if one's mind drifts away and appreciate the beauty of nature.

As we stopped for a tea break, i read the address of the hotel and behold i was on the grand trunk road. The road which i had read about in my history books. Suddenly the name Sher Shah Suri came to my mind, then Akbar, my history lesson, the teacher who taught me history and the friends i had during that time. All of sudden, i became nostalgic. Its a interesting phenomenon.. when minor things trigger a chain of thoughts and those thoughts touch upon one's feelings.

Reached Dehradun at 9. It is not the place i expected to be. The weather is more or less similar to Delhi. It is highly crowded. Narrow roads and it is too commercialised. Guess, capitalhood has harmed the place. After a day in Dehradun, i felt my hometown Bangalore is much much better. Alas i left the garden city and came to delhi for work. When rest of India moves towards Bangalore, i moved away from it. People say it helps to swim against the tide, well i am sure that they didn't have this in mind when they said that.

The return journey was terrible. I had a stomach upset due to the lunch i had. I slept through the return journey, no more thoughts, no reflections. It was a simple drive back home. Reached Delhi at 1.

Thats the end of my Dehradun trip. Fascinating and interesting. I will be visitin it again very soon.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Delhi !!

Yup... i am in Delhi now... after 2 wonderful months in Bangalore... i came to Delhi to start working after my MBA ... i am not of that types.. who keeps their fingers crossed, with butterflies in stomach before they embark on a new journey...

Well i knew that Delhi was hot... but i didn't expect wht i had to bear whn i landed at the IGI Airport... i boarded the flight in blore in the mornin of 9th June, the temp. read 22 C .. thanks to the showers the previous nite... i landed in Delhi.. and the thermometer was screamin at 49.5 C.. for someone who has spent their entire lifetime in Blore... 49.5C is like an oven... i felt i was fried... the hot blasts of air didn't ease the situation a bit.... i didnt know how i would survive in a place like this...

the newspapers next day made my life a bit bearable... as per them the previous day's temp. was the highest recorded in delhi in the past decade... it didn't mean nethin... but only respite was that i hav experienced the worst and whtevr will happen now will only be for the better...
did u call me an optimist?? ... well .. i dont hav ne options u c... :) ...