Self Financed Expedition to BorEdom

[Travel Tips] Travelling to Athens and Santorini in Greece

2013-05-16T10:43:00.000+05:30

Thought I'll put the blog to a better use and get it somewhat active, so hopefully share a few more of the travel tips to places where I have been. The idea came upon when I sent a long email to one of my friends who is traveling to Greece and so I am sharing the same tips here.

I plan to share my exp and tips from Turkey visit as well, and if I am able to recall, will share my tips from Italy and Paris.

We stayed at -

Athens - Melia Athens , costed us $80/night

Santorini - Petit Palace in Fira costed us $100/night

I'll first start with the general travel tips and then get to each city -

1. Technology & Apps -

Use Tripit.com app to plan your itinerary - works on apple and android products. Just need to forward your bookings to their email id and it created the entire plan - awesome product, very convenient
Dont carry a laptop unless you have to. Infact can do without any tablet as well (we took it to transfer pics and keep space in memory stick). 1 Phone is more than sufficient to keep family & friends updated where you are and whatever internet you might need.
Buy a local sim card from the country you are traveling, gives the best plans.
Buy a European converter before leaving

2. Food and Transport -

Take loads of biscuits and namkeen(snacks) from India (or your country)- whatever you like. There is a lot of walking and you will need these snacks during the day. Can take Kgs of such food since it anyways wont come back.
Tap water in Athens in drinkable - not in Santorini!! So instead of buying 1-1 bottles everytime for 1.5-2 Euros, go to supermarket and get a pack of 6 bottles for 2-2.5 Euro once in for all.
If you are like me - you want Milk based coffee or tea. Europeans drink dark coffee and tea and even their Frappe, which looks amazing is made of water with slight milk. Take your own packs of small coffee,tea/sugar sachets.
Take loads of chili flakes/oregano packets if you take it with your cheese n bread food - their food wont even have salt, but atleast its available.
If you plan to be a vegetarian, life will be tough but their Greek Salad rocks.
Cabs will be very expensive in both places, though we hardly took any transport in Athens - more on this later.
Travel light, pack take unnecessary stuff and make sure to take one backpack style bag (or laptop bag) - might need it to keep umbrella, food, jackets, camera etc and its not easy to steal it or forget it :))
If you have 4 wheel suitcases, take those. Rollers are essential.

3. Money -

We took the travel card on both occasions, converted euro in India and got the fixed rate - Very convenient. Acts like debit card to withdraw money and credit card at restaurants. Explore that. You will get a very bad exchange rate for rupees in Europe.

4. Things to Carry

Take loads of sunscreen, shades and cap/hat
Carry walking shoes for sure and can skip slippers entirely (we managed).
Leave your PAN card and other debit cards in India. But make sure you have 1 or max 2 debit/credit card incase of emergency. Ask your bank how much it costs to use them.
Even towel can be avoided, can take a hand towel at max - again travel light point.
A jacket/ cargo pants that has zip would be ideal!

ATHENS -

Stay near Acropolis area. Taxi till there from airport will cost 35 euro (fixed rate of apr 2013). If the metro goes there, will be way cheaper. Inquire at airport.
2 Days in athens was sufficient for us. Take 1 day to explore the Acropolis area Parthenon and other ruins. Its good and scenic. Take a guide for 15-20 euro for one of these else you will be clueless. 2nd day we visited the Museum, amongst the better museums but if you are not a fan and have better plans, can be skipped.
We traveled entirely on foot both days even though there was a metro station. Best way to discover the city is on foot unless you want to travel far.

Athens Food -

Restaurants start closing in around 8:30ish. Though pubs and bars are open, for vegetarian food - its ideal to have dinner by max 8pm. Else gets difficult to find veg food.

Athens Shopping -

Can buy olive oil or something. What I remember is that there is this flea market, can bargain 10-20% on the quoted rates. Mostly souvenirs

Travelling till Ferry Port -

Reach 1-1.5 hrs before(confirm with hotel), costed us 25 euros from taxi early morning 6am, from acropolis area. Get your seats right upfront in the bluestar ferry. Check with agent if seats are assigned, else take tickets that have assigned seats.

SANTORINI -

From Port to main town - There are 2 options to reach Fira or Oia

Suggestion - As soon as you land, within 20 mins buses leave for Fira and Oia from the port and are very economical. They will leave you at bus stand, depending upon the location of hotel, you might have to taxi. Check with hotel before reaching.
You can rent a car/bike for 24 hrs as soon as you land - if you think you will roam about that day and not sleep entire time. A cab will cost 25-30 euros but a 2 wheeler costed 15 euro and car costed 30-40 euros for 24 hrs (your rates will be higher by 5-10 euros because of season)

Travelling within Santorini -

Best way to travel is take a bike / quadbike which might cost 20 euros at your time. Plenty of places in Fira, Oia to rent them. A cab will cost atleast 5 euros one way. With your own vehicle, you can see the entire island which is the best part. Ask your hotel if they too rent it - our hotel rented us the car and it was the cheapest rate we got. (car will cost 40-45 euros)

Sanrotini Food -

Restaurants in Fira are open till late 11-12ish here so thats good.
Fira is supposed to have good nightclubs (off season for us) so can explore that
There is a Mexican restaurant, 3kms away from Fira city center - very famous, everyone in Fira knows it. It has amazing food!! Make sure to dine there the day you have your bike. Try their Nachos.

Santorini Shopping -

Again souvenirs, though Oia was a bit expensive since its the more touristy place. Buy souvenirs from Fira city center where there are ATMs, there are 2-3 shops, reasonable rates.

Santorini Sightseeing -

Explore Oia well - wonderful place. Fira and Imerovigli are other good places, Fira is more of a modernish place where you have the market and clubs as well.
Do take one of the Ferry boat tours that last for 3-5 hrs. We took the one that lasted 5 hrs and takes you to Volcano and Thirassia. I thought Thirassia can be skipped since we just ate at the port and only Volcano one was worth it, though not that bad. If you have time, take the longer one but do take one.
Take the car/bike from Oia to Fira from longer route/beach route (ask hotel). Verrry scenic drive. Make sure to cover the island from top to bottom, about 40-50 kms only total, but worth it.

Hope to write tips from Turkey very soon

SSS

ISB monthly - Buzz words & realizations

2012-08-14T23:31:00.004+05:30

Today is exactly 4 months when I came to ISB and it occurred to me that in these 4 months, I have came across so many acronyms, new buzz words - that came, went through a spike period and then just faded away.

Similarly at the end of every month - there are some realizations, that our sane friends (mba or non mba) had warned us about - but we never listened.

Here are some of them that I can recall

April -

Buzz words - networking, late night parties, O-week & 'O'8, pre-reads, assignments
Realization - getting back to school is tough, can longer study for 20 mins on a trot without eating/facebooking / calling / emailing/ chatting

May -

Buzz words - GSB, elections, p2p, John Paul, arbit CP, zeeba, DLF, dunking, goel food *****
Realization -
"I have never been a topper in my life - why the hell did I think I can party all night and be a dean lister!"
Its not really networking if you get sloshed at the party and then forget the person - it's simple partying!

June (after renewed faith that we can still come back as..a dean lister!)

Buzz words - Club elections, spam (club elections emails) , DMOPed, Markstrat, Kale (or God as sec EFGH said)
Realization -
Lets get real - im no dean lister, just try to stay close to mean
No matter how bad your group was - its still was YOUR group and you like it.
I am getting fat!
Not having a mid-term is actually not a good thing.

July - Aug mid (after loosing the dean lister hope)

Buzz words - ELP, PaEV, BSchool Comp, Kanvaaaa, zeeba again, 'speaker session', surveymonkey
Realization -
Participating in every god damn bschool contest does not increase my capacity to deliver, but only increases my capacity to deliver more substandard outputs.
Cannot survive on subway anymore - time to hire a maid.
There are 3 ISB campuses - Mohali, ABCD and EFGH
Pre-reads are things of past - priority is to reach the class.

Looking forward to more new buzz words in the coming month!

The not so 'Amazing' Spiderman

2012-07-03T00:41:00.000+05:30

The new spiderman was so disappointing that it pushed me out of my blog hibernation to finally write the 1st movie review blog. I'm no critic so I'll keep it straight to the point - just like a die hard spidey fan!

For someone who watched the first 3 installments of Sam Raimi's Spiderman, and has been waiting for the 4th installment (reboot in this case) since past 5 years - it was utterly disappointing! For die hard spidey fans - who just like me, pushed all there friends to watch and LIKE spiderman movies because comics and cartoons were just too much fun - its even sadDer ;-(

Why: Well simply because the new director just does not build the characters and hops from one scene to the other. Remember how Raimi screwed up the 3rd spiderman with all the bollywoodish romance - well this one tops that. The movie focuses a little too much on the romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy (though Emma Stone was a winner in this role - way better than Kirsten Dunst).

The Good:

Andrew Garfield makes a very believable spiderman - job well done
The spidey effects are ofcourse better - the 3d is not!
Emma stone looks great as Gwen Stacy
Good to see Indian actor (Irfan Khan) in the movie, even though was an arbit role

The Let Down:

The whole Peter Parker discovery that he is the spiderman - here he is bit and just starts flying around - arbit!
TOoooooo much focus on 1-1 scenes between the 2 leads, its a comic action movie for christ sakes
No spidey scene during day - he is no batman, why didn't the director had him flying during the day? Spiderman 2 rocked simply because of climax action sequence, the train scene is still a classic.
The pace of the movie - just rushed through the characters, you can't connect to anyone, why villan became evil, his motive, Peter Parker transition from a shy kid to spiderman - nothing
No proper background score - haven't they learnt anything from Dark Knight, Inception??
Maybe the flaws came because this is Marc Webb's first big budget action movie (previously directed 500 days of summer, a romcom - no surprises). But to him I can only say - "With Great powers comes great responsibility ;)" {okay I copied this from a critic}

Maybe the flaws came because this is Marc Webb's first big budget action movie (previously directed 500 days of summer, a romcom - no surprises). But to him I can only say - "With Great powers comes great responsibility ;)" {okay I copied this from a critic}

To Sony: Can't you guys get Nolan for the next spiderman - why not earn 2 freaking billion dollars.

Verdict: Go and Watch Spidey - yes watch it!..good or bad, it's a spiderman movie after all - how can you miss that ;)

The Great Indian White Obsession

2010-06-15T01:47:00.000+05:30

In India:-
"car ho to...white
dhoti kurta ho to...white
job ho to... white (collared)
jhooth ho to..saféd (white)
ladki chaaheye to...gori chitti (i.e white, fair)!!"

Indians are obsessed with the color - White! The only time you will hear an Indian speak the word 'black' is when he is dealing with big payment, " I waaant the entire payment in black"..and that too is being replaced these days by the word 'cash' :- "how much money in white and how much in cash??"

If the obsession with a girl's skin-tone to be white (fair) wasn't already enough, the companies have now started a new campaign to make the guys insecure about the skin-tone - Go fair! Today I saw a revolutionary ad from HUL to promote its fairness cream - Fair & Lovely for Men. (why is a men's cream named LOVELY is beyond my understanding - but I guess only the 'lovely' boys will end up using such creams)

What the ad is about:
Well I only got to see the last 5 secs but it was good enough to capture the Essence of the ad. A guy turns up for a job interview and is grilled. In the end he get the job. Now 2 things are of utmost importance

Why he got the job? A: because he is what we call a gora chitta ladka (fair skin-tone) due to consistent use of Fair & Lovely!! (yeah right)

Whats the Catch ? A: The interviewing committee is entirely composed of men !!!

Now what kind of team (all male) is looking for a 'gora-chitta' guy? 2 Things that to mind:

Either the entire gang had the hots for the candidate which makes this ad the first of its kind in Indian television, that promotes homosexuality and office sexual harassment- all in one ad.
or either the company is into the business of providing gigolos and is hiring fresh recruits for its clients who have a feetish for 'white Indian male'!

In either case, HUL has a very good chance of attracting a lawsuit. Of-course the ad isn't actually trying to project any of the above mentioned ;) So the questions now arises as to what are they actually trying to achieve from this ad:-

That the educated youth who are looking for jobs will actually go to stores and pick these creams to become fair before they apply for jobs!!

Lets take a step back and imagine how the advertising guys would have pitched this ad to HUL management:

(Dialog between ABC advertising firm and HUL team):

ABC: Sir ji socho socho, yeh dekhkar bacha bacha cream lagayega. Job to sabko chaaheye. Har maa apne college jaatey bacche se pochegi -

Ma: beta khana kha liya

Beta: haan maa

Ma: beta acche se padhai kar li na

Beta: haan Maa, khoob padha

Ma: aur beta...Fair & lovely????

Beta: Ma woh to har waqt mere sath rehti hai, roz subah lagata hoon, aakhir naukri jo leni hai. Har subah bhagwan ka naam leta hoon and mutthi bhar cream lagata hoon. Dekhna doodh jaisa gora niklonga 4th year tak, sab dekhte reh jayenge

Ma: Shaabaash beta, bas doodh jaisa gora hotey hi teri naukri pakki. tere babuji to hamesha se ek beti chahtey they, ab tu dhoodh jaise gorepan se unka woh sapna bhi poora kar dena.

HUL: hmm yeh to achha hai. But recession ka time hai, job agar na lagi?
ABC: dont worry sirji, uske liye bhi ek tarkeeb hai. Hum 2-4 saal ki cream ka quota har IIM IIT NLS AIMS ke students ko dedenge, ki lagao and recession mein job pao. In colleges ki to job lag he jayegi, fair n lovely for men aag ki tarah failegi. Bachha bachha cream ke liye tarsega - cream dedo, job lagvani hai.
HUL: wah wah, kya tooofiani ad hai..shabaash!

Of-course the above dialog never happened (or maybe it did) and I may have exaggerated it a bit to much, but it would have taken a similar exaggeration from advertising firm to sell this ad concept to HUL.

Whatever might be the case, everybody now knows that this mens cream has the words Lovely in its name and its ad promotes (a)sexual harassment, (b) homosexuality and (c) boost to gigolo trade....and I thank HUL for such a masterpiece of an ad. Hope to see the entire ad someday ;)

(don't know whom to credit the images as I found it on the net, but a big thank you to whoever designed it, Obama's ad, - it truly reflects the real potential of fairness creams!)

From now on its - Shashaank.com

2009-10-13T20:16:00.000+05:30

I have finally made the transition from the traditional blogspot.com to my own personalized domain. It just struck me today, when I noted that www.shashaank.com was actually available (in the web world, its helps to have an uncommon name:D), that too I should have my blog on my own personal domain. So the first thing I did was book this domain for the next 2 years.

So from now on, shanksss.blogspot.com is www.shashaank.com !

Hopefully it will help my friends memorize my blog address easily now ;-)

Till then, bbye

Shashaank Shekhar Singhal

How the 1st month went for Design Chords

2009-10-01T20:06:00.000+05:30

We just finished with the 1st test project on Design Chords today - the Sketch Lounge Logo Project. The project ran for a 31 day period and we got 98 unique entries from 21 designers.. All in all its a pretty good start for us. We 'll be declaring the winning design here on the blog on 5th Oct on blog.designchords.com . In the coming weeks we'll be pushing to complete the leftover basic functionalities that the site needs along with the much needed facelift.

THE TRAFFIC STATS:Enthusiastic as anyone is about their first ever initiative, I had look at the analytics of the site from the time we started the project till it ended. Pretty interesting data to look at(the hits from our team have been filtered) -

We overall had 1193 Visits in the entire month
Each person on average viewed 5 pages and spent ~5 minutes on the site (not bad actually, considering we don’t have a lot of pages yet)
1/3 visitors leave the site from the homepage itself (pretty bad I admit, we’re working on that)

The traffic really dies down on weekends, whereas Monday see a great spur ;-) Guess we all know why.

Geographic Distribution : Geographically, the traffic pretty much came from India and kind of did expect it. We hope the ratio will decrease in the coming months -

India – 75.3%
USA – 11.4%
Singapore – 3.8%
Pakistan – 2.4%
Brazil -1.3%
Australia – 1%
We also got some visitors from – Canada, UAE, UK , Switzerland, France, Germany, Finland, China, Indonesia, Ghana, Ireland, Philippines and Portugal

Overall, we had traffic from 30 countries

Browsers and Operating Systems : Now here is an interesting trend to look at. We’ve all heard and observed how IE is being phased out by Chrome and Mozilla, our site’s traffic proves the same with Mozilla and Chrome together sharing ~73% of the traffic! Have a look -

Mozilla – 45.3%
Chrome – 27.5%
IE – 21.1%
Rest is Opera and Safari ~ 3% each

But apparently Open Source has yet not been able replicate its charm in the Operating system space, Windows leads the competition and the others don’t even come close -

Windows – 90.7% (~68% is XP, 26% is Vista)
Linux – 3.8%
Mac – 2.4%
Symbian – 1.6%

Traffic Source : i.e From where did our visitors reach the site. No surprises here, since we only took the help of mails and facebook the stats prove the same -

Direct Traffic – 63.70%
Referring Sites – 33.78% (shared b/w facebook, orkut and twitter)
Search Engines – 2.51%

I hope I'll have a much more promising data to share here by the end of the year. Lets see how it goes.

Shashaank Shekhar Singhal
www.designchords.com

A decade dedicated to 'change'

2009-09-21T14:21:00.000+05:30

I've been thinking about writing on this topic since long, basically because everyday when I wakeup I notice how our life has dramatically changed over the last decade - the change called 'Technology'! So below I'm mentioning some things that have transformed the way we live today - things that didn't mean to us anything before the start of 21st century (i.e just 9-10 years) but today probably form a part of our IDENTITY -

Mobile Communication

This has to top my list.. Reason: I check my mobile probably even before I wake..Incase some1 tried my number while I was sleeping!! (okay thats my own eccentricity). Starting from a 50yr old CEO a 5 yr old starting school - everyone has a cell phone! India has been leading the market, we've got the cheapest telecommunication rates in the world - hell my 2k/month earning servant has a mobile phone! Although this technology has helped us stay connected with our loved one, ironically - a full day without it (if we make through)feels like heaven! ;-)

Computer / Laptops

I think I don't need to write anything here. You're reading this, hence point made:) (unless you're reading on a blackberry, then again..hence previous point made!). The computers really came much before 21st century, but I think its in the early 2000s that they became so prominent. From luxury, its a necessity today. You can't join half the post graduate courses if you don't have 1! Isn't it interesting to imagine how MNCs worked before computers took over..imagine your office w/o computer (probably half of us would be jobless if we wont have an office computer ;D). A special mention of Microsoft here, people(esp developers) can keep cursing MS for whatever reasons, fact still remains - 99% of us learned computer on a windows OS! For me it was Windows 3.1 ;)

The Internet

This is my personal fav - simply because it's one innovation that has brought about a change in the way we live today - it changed how govts, institutes, companies carry out their operations and thus changed the world. A computer today isn't complete in itself till it has internet with it. The very scenario of imagining top shot consultants running around libraries/document stores flipping pages for their research is hilarious!;) within itself Internet has fueled different technologies which have brought about dramatic changes -

Email: Thanks to Sabeer bhatia, half of us have forgotten writing long distance 'khat'..remember the 10 mark 'letter writing' part in CBSE boards..when was the last time you wrote that kind of mail! Today you cannot fill half the forms is you don't have an email id - its no longer an option, its who you are.

Google: I am not sure whether I should classify it as a company or technology, I just know Google today us used as a VERB, it's replaced the word 'search' for so many of us. "Hey just google that on other sites as well" isn't very uncommon these days;). Some companies literally exist because there is Google, think what if Google goes paid!

Just before I end a quick reflection on some rather interesting points we take for granted ..

Memory: How many phone numbers do we have on our tips compared to 10 years back
Attention Span: When was the last time we listened to a song coz we can't skip like in the cassette days , or even for that matter, listened to a full song
The thrill of reunion: Thanks to social n/ws, a friends reunion doesn't have the usual talks of how much everyone has changed, the orkut facebook pics are enough. Infact even the excitement isnt the same when you bump into some1 you haven't met in long, since you are aware he yesterday he had a bad day at work - thanks to his FB status!!!
Watching television with family: Infact leave this, I guess ~half the population has stopped watching regular TV.
Writing: thats more personal, But I find it a lot hard these days to write on paper, than to write on computer..wonder how many agree.

On this very note, I finish this post with a nice video from Microsoft on their vision of the world in 2019 - thanks to technological innovations...

Shashaank Shekhar Singhal
www.designchords.com

What's been going on lately

2009-08-21T15:49:00.000+05:30

Hey Guys

Returning here after quite some time, as usual ;-) Well the thing is that I've been giving it a good thought lately on what should I say when some1 asks me about my much hyped 'venture'. Though almost all the close friends know what went wrong, very few people know what I've been doing to fix it and when will it actually be up and running. So here below I am writing a few things about myself from the time Apr-Aug 2009 :
My mistake(s),the things that went wrong and right, what I've been upto & finally whats up with designchords.com !

1. My Mistake(s)

I did not research well enough about what all will be needed to start a company. I had an idea, a friend and I went ahead. Mistake = I failed to see if the founding team had all the necessary skills to run the operations - my web startup didn't have a WEB guy on the team!!!
I outsourced my site development and was planning to outsource maintenance as well = I outsourced my business. Mistake= It should have been a mistake more from a financial point of view, though it turned out to be more grave due to external reasons (read below)
I expected too much, to the point of being impractical. I had a vision of launching my complete site in 1 big bang way and go crazy with publicity. Mistake = I waited too long for each feature to be perfect & complete and thus wasted valuable time..web businesses don't really get 'inaugurations'. 'once the foundation has been laid down, start getting the occupants'

2. What went wrong:

The outsourced team developing the site did not have the skills to finish the site and they never shared this (though even now they don't). After delaying the development by 3 months , they've finally shown the white flag which leaves us empty handed (infact short of some 50k cash - not empty handed). Result = we started the site from scratch in July!
The site was built on windows platform. Wrong = Getting a CTO/tech head for the team became a headache. Open source is the new mantra for the tech junkies and no1 wanted to get their hands dirty by learning windows tech and manage our site.
Because of the delay we couldn't capitalize on our Mumbai demo opportunity (see below)

3. What went right

We were nominated for a National startup event 'Headstart' and demoed in Mumbai infront of 300+ people. Best part - we got a fabulous response from everyone who saw our product. Though we couldn't capitalize on this opportunity to get client work coz of the delay, it still lifted the spirits of the team.
I found the tech co-founder for Designchords post this event - a friend & classmate from college days. With him on board, our company finally had the right mix of skills required to go ahead with the project.

4. What I've been upto

Most part involves being tense a lot many times about the future of my company and my own future!
Having been learning french and starting level 2
Helping dad set up and run the hospital which has been long due and still not finished (biigggg headache). Also set myself a nice small office in the hospital ;)
Unsuccessfully attempting to learn web devt - HTML,CSS, C#.net, PHP. But successfully learning Photoshop slowly
Reading a lot of blogs on entrepreneurship, startups, economy and some bit of fiction reading.
Day to day work on DesignChords, preparing investor's pitch, administrating work to be done, wasting time with the outsourced team, check on site progress and brainstorming on features and looks, site testing etc.
Giving ad-hoc support to a dear friend to launch his startup http://www.koolistan.com/ (check out) by taking the role of acting marketing head. Though koolistan too is going through its ups and downs, its helping a lot to understand the way the 'web' industry works.

5. What's up with Design Chords -

Finally there is some +ve progress. We hope to go public with the site next week in alpha mode - which means the site has minimalistic looks and features but can do the job. Fingers crossed, if all things go well we soon will be asking for Client work! aha.

I would request everyone who had the patience to read this long post to do this one favor - visit http://www.designchords.com/ and drop in their contact if they havnt done yet ;-) It's the anticipation of finally launching my startup that really triggered me to write this post and come out clean.

Thanks
Shashaank Shekhar Singhal

P.S: don't 'bash' us when we launch on our simple looks and features, we just have a 1 person army handling all the devt along with some help from Ravdeep. Though we're really hoping to get some great feedback on what can be done better ;-)

Some nice quotes

2009-07-25T20:29:00.001+05:30

Found a few set of nice quotes on the internet. I rather enjoy going through some 'inspiring' quotes once in a while and since I've found these all in once place - might as well pen it down on my blog so that I wont have to look for them again ;-)

"Whether you think can or you can't, you're right" - Henry Ford

"Anything the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve" - Napolean

"Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers" - Stephen Covey

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed"- Michael Jordan

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

"Watch listen and learn. You can't know it all by yourself. Anyone whi thinks they do is destined for mediocrity" - Donal Trump

And my personal favorite amongst the lot, for obvious reasons ;)

"Formal education will make you a living, self education will make you a fortune" - Jim Rohn

Good day!

Dull status

2009-07-14T16:08:00.000+05:30

Hi

as of the habit, i've been out of this place since long and probably just writing this post coz my good friend Vipul has threatened to remove my link from his blog as I've already reached the bottom of the blog list in his blog. Anyhow I had vouched to write only INTERSTING (interesting for me) and light hearted blogs..but recently I've not been in the right frame of mind (i.e in a funny mood). My day is spent escaping mohali power cuts, checking a non-functioning site, understanding budget implications, trying to do something with the god damned hospital and arbit reading, so basically nothing worth writing about.

As for the status of Design Chords (something everyone has been asking me lately, ofcourse) - All I can say is whenever the site is ready to be launched or even nearing launch - TRUST me..I'll be going buzzerk with the mass mails/calls/sms/scraps/wal posts/status msgs and any other existing medium to inform all of you about the launch ...
till that time, I prefer to keep a low profile.

Will return when i've got something more worthwhile to blog about.

SSS

The Social Dilemma of meeting the elderly

2009-05-12T21:50:00.000+05:30

My social life these days is very much confined to my immidiate family and the people who meet them which primarily comprises of relatives and my 'aunties and uncles'. That one thing about starting your own venture is that you really dont get to meet a lot of people of your own age - esp during the preparation stages. My room is pretty much where i spend all my day. Now turns out that earlier I never used to be at home(obv), but now when people come home to visit mum and papa - they're kind of surprised to see me at home on a WED morning! Thats not all...lately I've been visiting some govt offices with dad for some work and turns out Dad is really enjoying that his son is accompanying him to these places after so long and thus wants to introduce me to Everyone he meets - each and everrry govt official.

Now I think you all know where is this headed..but I'll still like to tell this in much detail. What really happens is that dad puts me in front of the person (the govt official or the aunty uncle etc)and mentions with great pride "beta apne baare mein batao". This is how the conversation goes (trying to include some of the uncle's punjabi phrases)-

Uncle - "hor beta ji..aj kal ki karde paye ho"
Me - "amm uncle apni company start kar raha hoon..bas usi ki preperation mein busy hoon"
Uncle (all puzzled) "haaAaaaaa?Tera matlab tu company'ch' resign kar ditta?eh ki? Ki hoya..gal banani nai?" (which means u could t get along with the company)
Me - "nahi uncle, actually I'd spent 2 years in the company already and wanted to try something new now, I had this plan in mind and wanted to execute it, so just came back home and now working on it with another school friend"...............

BREAK-----------------
In the meantime dad mentions that I was working the world class company 'McKinsey'.."suna he hoga tussi" - (yeah right!!!). Now the ironic thing is that dad finally came to terms with the fact that McKinsey was brand like none other, after sending him numerous global surveys of forbes, time, vault etc - he was convinced that McKinsey was the place one should go and he was Finally proud of me and ofcourse wanted to show it off. But what he forgets is that McKinsey is not a brand name easily recognized, esp people in his circle. Cant blame them when some of the Indian MBAs themselves arn't aware of the name McKinsey ,then are they suppsoed to know it. But moving on..the uncle isnt too impressed with that - he now thinks 'lad sitting at home who was previously working for a Mcdonald or something firm'..very much like if a Kelloggs MBA tells to a typical Indian uncle where he studied from and uncle passing on the same to his wife "oh jo daliya wali comany haigi..os college te kiti haigi"......:-(
CONTINUED-------------------------------

Uncle (now even more puzzeled) "amm, achha..to business kis cheez da hai"
Me - "uncle its an internet company" (uncle gives a fishy look - who doesnt own an internet company, so i continue ..)
Me- "the model is to crowdsource the creative part of a project to any designer sitting anywhere in the world and get it done for less cost"

Uncle clearly does not get a word about whats just said - he looks at papa who is smilling endlessly and letting him know that hee too has no clue about my business. To save some grace papa chips in - "ji PEC to padhiya hoya hai..woh bhi electronics kiti hai".. !!! Thanks dad, that really makes me look good! Now uncle ji thinks young lad went to one of the better colleges, graduated with a arbit placement, could not even cope up there and now came back home to relax..real nice!
Well so I take some more time to explain my model to uncle so he gets some sense of what I am trying to do. So the response..

Uncle - "Ooooo..achha to tu Broker haiga. Agent varga kam karega..aagi samajh"

O DEAR LORD, I did not even see that coming! If doing 'bujjinaas" wasnt enough already, I was now a borker/dealer/agent! I kinda like when people call me an enterprenuer, but I did even remotely imagine I'd be catagorized in this league as well. Way to go shanks ;-(

So in a gist what uncle finally understands is -
"boy goes to PEC, screws up his time there & lands up with a burger Mcdonalds type company..isnt able to cope up even there..runs back home and puts up with his parents..ends up being a broker/dealer..all education gone waste"

Well after giving more like 10+ similar interview to my cousins, uncles aunts and various other random people..I finally found out that the best way is to just.. suck it up and Live with it. Thats the change I just have to bear. To think about it, I too have been the culprit at times - judging anyone who said he was doing business coz he didnt enjoy the office routine - now its my turn to be at the receiving end.

Just hoping irrespective of my sucess in this 'bujjiness' of mine..my dad still will introduces me to people with this same pride :D

Broker/Agent
SSS

2nd thoughts

2009-04-28T23:21:00.000+05:30

dont know why I really need to pen this down..but just not in one of my best mood today. I feel so irritated and heavy in the head. to be honest, its all realted to my dear 'entreprenurial' experiment. Things have been the best lately and as of now im only witnessing the roadblocks - though its to early to get discouraged, but what the hell - i feel like this today, i feel it! I just wish things were a little more promising or I had done justice to my engg and did some s/w coding in depth as well :( Maybe im just thinking too much for no reason, I've had a not so great last 5-6 days, havnt heard anything that i could call good news in past 2 weeks. I'm just hopeful things will tkae their own place and I'll be back with my full vigour in a day or two and not sound this pathetic. Probably then I might delete this post as well..

I dont't plan to write anything more for now, but definitly get more active on this forum with some positive energy.. Lets see how that PLAN goes.

Regards
SSS

Some good words

2009-04-14T14:21:00.000+05:30

Some thoughtful lines from Teddy Roosevelt from a speech in 1910..really liked it:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again
and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high
achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
knew neither victory nor defeat

Something to cheer about

2009-01-16T14:12:00.000+05:30

Hi after a loong time
But it'l be swift one as I have to head back to home sweet home - chd! Just was going through my blog and noticed I havnt updtaed in a long time. Well nothing to much to share, just felt nice with the golden globe awards with rehman bringing a trophy back home. After all the satyam fiasco, the indo-pak game.. something to uplift the mood. India keeps talking about bollywood start making it into internatinal arena, but seems the one who has actually made an impact in the international scene plans to maintain a not-so hyped status quo. Good going Rehman...Jai ho!

I definitly plan to become active again here and start with my 'non-serious' stuff.. have been lately caught up in work and my ambitious 'under the table' project :)
Will come up with a much better post soon.

The Indian Spirit...And the Politicians who Break it !! Mumbai 26/11

2008-11-28T23:42:00.000+05:30

The last few days have been simply shocking as well as extremely depressing for India. History has been made in parts of Mumbai, a history India will not be very proud of. Not taking away the glory from our NSG commandos who have been displayed sheer brilliance - real-life heroes, but their act is much diluted by the very intensity of these attacks, the impact they had already left - 300+ injured, 165 dead and counting, 14 of those officers, 2 NSG officers, 15+ foreign nationals.

To go ahead on a more embarrassing note, the Indian govt disaster management/infrastructure capabilities have been exposed, how vulnerable India is to any kind of attacks, esp with senior officials acknowledging that the Indian coastline is too big to guard fully..thats verrry reassuring!

One thing that just cannot escape one's mind is the unanimous 'Indian unity' seen in such times - when its really needed. Yes it does sound like any other cliche like the 'delhi/mumbaikar spirit', but to think of it, its rather true. When the times have been hard on us, we all have actually comes together as one nation to save each other, leaving behind all our petty issues - be it the Tsunami disaster or these terror attacks, Indians from every walk of life worked together to minimize the chaos, helping people find their near ones, donating blood, creating awareness..Sure there were certain sections (and even certain news channels!)who wern't the best help - spreading rumors one after another, but that does not negate the fact that so many Indians came together to save the innocent lives, not worrying if he was a Mumbaikar, a north indian, a muslim, an OBC or a foreigner - he was just another innocent human being who deserved to live.

But what about Raj Thackeray - the self proclaimed 'messiah of maharasthra'. Where is he and his MNS goondas. Seems their publicized 'balls of steel' are actually just 'jamun balls' - easily crushed! He can only exercise his force on celebrities like Jaya Bachhann Shah rukh khan, the -reel heroes. But when the 'real' enemies arrive, its only the 'real' Heroes who can do something about it, and not some pussies like Thackeray who just push the innocent people to mislead the crowd. Even if he had chosen to save only Mumbai born people from the two hotels and sent his MNC cowards to aid the police, might have still helped to keep the death toll below 150!

But these bloody politicians, they're just on the lookout of an opportunity to divide this country into pieces. Every Indian knows its just a matter of time when BJP will misuse these terror attacks to showcase how ineffective Congress has been, and Congress wil retailiate by showing how it handled it effectively, when in reality all these two parties did was 'Condemn terrorism' on TV and send politicians to terrorist flushed areas - to create further chaos and divert the working armed force! In a matter of months India will be back to its usual self, Hindus fighting with Muslims, students protesting against each other for quotas and mumbai making Maharashtra based north Indians feel alienated - all Govt sponsored! Just plain sad.

Last thing I would like to share here is my opinion on the Govt aid policy provided to the family of the policemen who died on duty. I fail to understand howcome if a Yuvraj hits 6 sixes, Sachin breaks century records, Bindra hits Olympic gold becomes a matter of such pride that not only the BCCI/sports authority reward them heavly in lakhs/crores, but also various other organizations and even state govt. shower monetary rewards to them - where as a policeman who dies while saving his fellow Indians is only looked after by the State govt! I dont mean to demean the achievements of the above mentioned heroes - they re real Indian heroes as well and have made us all verry proud, but doesn't a policemen deserve the same respect/honour who has made his country equally or probably even more proud. Just chanting his name for 2-3 days on radio/tv will be enough?His family will be fed by that?A 5-10 lakh compensation is all that his family deserve? Is it only Maharasthra/Delhi govt's duty to aid these brave countrymen, can't a Punjab/haryana and other 20+odd states contribute something or the other to the family of these people who gave in their lives just to save INDIANS. Rs.1 crore for a Yuvraj/bindra is a lot, something they can use to buy their next grand car; but the samount to the family of an expired policemen means bread and butter for the entire family - probably for a whole lifetime. Something to think about.

I just hope our politicians stop their cheap propagandas and realize it time to take certain drastic measures for India's security and also keep the motivation levels of the armed forces high by rewarding them properly to ensure if ever another similar War ever breaks out, its the Terrorists who suffer and not the common man.

Salute to the brave armed forces, the responsible media and the courageous staff of the two hotels!

Food and Movie Blog - Coming Soon

2008-11-21T14:02:00.001+05:30

Hey
Back again for a quick stint. I'm planning to start another blog on a new field recommended by a good friend of mine (doc) - Food review!! As I just looove food and trying out new restaurants, I might as well write my personal reviews on the ones I have visited just to give a snapshot of what to expect. I might also chip in a few movie reviews - the ones I would have watched recently in theatre to save a few souls their precious 200 bucks (inspired by yesterday's "dasvidaniya" torture!!!)

I'll start with my very favourite 'Khan Chacha' and post it over the weekend. But just for headsup, don't expect a very elegant pompous review like the ones published by Times Group (of course!!) It'll be just some plain simple words on my overall experience about the place.movie like the way I would have told it to a friend
Cya soon with a good 'reviewed' post !

SSS

Laid..globally

2008-11-07T15:07:00.000+05:30

Finally an entry after quite sometime. As always not sure what to write but I think I'll probably write some crap on the much talked about topic - global crunch=laid off globally. Now the term 'being laid' had an altogether a very different meaning earlier - imagine a guy boasting (i.e ofcourse before sep 08) [excited voice] "dudeee..i got so laid yesterday mannn - and the best thing is I wont even have to go back tomorrow- yooo man". The times have changed so fast that if you hear the same thing today you'l interpret it very differently - [dull voice] "duuuude..i got laid man - I was told that I wont have to come back tomorrowww, oh mann"
It is no wonder that firms have the upper hand today (only on their employees) and thus are not wasting anytime to get back at the much popularised 'young talent' with all the things they ever would have wanted to do with the tantrum of double job offer, work life balance, higher pay, good work, higher studies etc. Now is the time for the the corporate bashing - the 12+hours shifts, the no 'nonsense' talk of balanced life, cut on perks - mineral water fruits electricity!!, no promotion no growth, no hikes - "hike??ur lucky enough not to have been laid off you ***".

Infact best news I've heard in recent times was that some of the Indian firms slashed their employees pays just because its the 'in-thing' , whether or not they face the crunch - "i waaas tald that the maarket is downji, i kaat eberyone's money that berry day ji..iiiii dont waant any raask"

All in all, its time for most of us - the under privileged 'employed' class to get our asses whopped. We had our time ( though I really didn't have mine though ;-(sadd) in the past , now its time for the 'big league' to play golf with some 'balls' ;-)

If only one has enough diplomacy and some serious ass kissing (& not kicking) power, one might get lucky in these times!

RoadTrip, Airtrip - Anytrip!

2008-09-22T15:26:00.000+05:30

Trip/vacation is running on my mind right now. I'm sitting in my office right now and cannot think more about taking a looong break again! I end up planning a lot on these w/o any results. I am seriously thinking on making some quick fix changes - pick up 1-2 friends and go on a crazy roadtrip to dharamshala, mclordganj etc. But thing is neither am I, nor any of my friends are so adventure savvy to pull this off 'righ on the moment' (just a far fetched dream). But still, thats one thing on top of my head to get done within the next month! any suggestions!?

Next comes a rather longer trip and not just a crazy weekend drive. A new years' vacation - which as obvious boils down to one an only choice - GOA! well I've not been there since ages (and the only time i went was with papa mummy in 99..and found goa sinfully boring!!). All I need is again - company to get along :( So bugged with routine I am, I've already mailed my friends if any1's up for it.

Acco:??..eeh we'll manage it..chalo to!

I'm being a crazy vacation thristy soul...hope to beat these plans this time with help of a few noble souls, as deprived and thirsty as I am.

Amen!

Hate paying Bills and being ill

2008-09-20T23:17:00.000+05:30

Hello
I haven't been able to write much on this blog owing to my recent rocking health which has actually ROCKED to the bottom. I hate falling so ill so frequently. Which remind thats I also hate the days I have to make my bill payments, got cleared wih my phone bill. newspaper bill, internet bill, cable bill..and since that day was today, t has made me even more ill. I hope to return here with a much better sounding blog.
Till then

Play Safe
SSS

Why So Non-Serious??

2008-09-17T19:48:00.000+05:30

I return (rather quickly I must say), but as it is one of my friend acknowledged that it was for the greater good of mankind that I kept this blog on the non-serious lines, unlike other filled with high level gyan, mba jargon and deep humane philosophies. So I pledge here, sitting on the office chair, that as long as this blog is active, every smelly sweat and gross drops of blood will go in maintaining the true nature of this blog - the non seriousness. Shall I fail to keep upto this task, complaints are more than welcome (not that they would be entertained)

Good day and ..Guddia

Introductory phase

2008-09-17T17:44:00.000+05:30

Finally after numerous attempts to start my own blog, I've finally managed to do it (without a clue of what to write, why write!). I am very confident that this new initiative too, just like my previous ones, will be a complete failure and I will never continue it again after some posts. Nevertheless I have to start the blog for only then it can successfully fail.

I have no particular subject to talk about for the day (amm..probably about hobbies considering I've given a 1st shot to make blogging a hobby..but that'll be too much), so let me close this post here itself before the blog R.I.P.