Pen of a Paranoid

My Friend Pinto

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:53:00 +0000

In the muffosils of India, we refer to it as the Aamerika. It was the only destination of dreams for many. If you quiz my mom even today about that one place she wished to visit in her life, she would say “Aamerika”.

Pinto aspired to be in the states (And calling it the “states” was a part of that aspiration, even for that matter US was too unsophisticated). Pinto wanted to do a PhD in Applied fluid engineering. He had even though of a topic for his thesis – “Deciphering the piss trajectory – Studying the effects of public attention on the parabolic trajectory of pissing - a case study of urinating in public.” As luck would have it, and thanks to his scores, he got a call from one of the universities. And yes, he got a 73.58% schol (For those who didn’t get it, Schol refers to scholarships, much like the NRTS or the NTSE scholarships given by the Indian government to the meritorious students, which can be used to pursue higher studies or buy a new notebook).

Before his Visa was approved, he read through all the articles on USA available on Wikipaedia. Started eating burgers for lunch and temme-wassup-with-ya-nigger talks. The worst part was he kept on explaining us the types of Visas available – H1B, L1 etc which sounded like the nomenclatures of flu virues.

On the day Pinto was leaving India, I went to bid farewell to my friend, who was already in the US in his heart and mind. A pair of chequered shorts, a Hawaiian beach shirt, earphones et al. While we were driving to the airport, he kept on urging to keep to the right so that he gets a hang of the US road rules.

On reaching there he updated his status on facebook – “With Uncle Sam” .Uncle Sam is an old man who wears a magician hat and hypnotises everyone who sets foot on American territory and had lured my dear friend into hypnosis. Days went by and the only way I was in touch with Pinto was through his updates and pics on Facebook and occasional chats.

He becomes utterly emotional on the independence day and uploads all the patriotic songs available on YouTube. One day I feared, in true Swades style, he would just get too nostalgic and come back to India and start working in the Indian labs completing that Piss project of his, which will educate all Indians to piss properly. It made me ashamed of myself not valuing the importance of the day and considering it just another Sunday.

Pinto has evolved into the true epitome of the global citizen. He has evolved over the silly cultural divides of the east and the west. Be it St. Paddy’s Day or Navaratra, he celebrates every festival with Chinese and African people (To be frank, I don’t know the nationalities of his friends. I may seem a racist but for me - anyone with slits instead of eyes is a Chinese and anyone who is invisible after sunset is an African)

I like Pinto for his deep-rooted love for our country and his indiscriminating nature. But at the same time I envy him, for his “posted via iPhone” status updates, for his “+1-I’ll-frighten-you-by-long-number-in-the-middle-of-the-night”, for his “I-ask hot chicks to just click a photo with me” pics uploaded on the net, for his “Normal Indian water upsets my stomach” remarks, “Back in the US, we use to do like this” aphorisms, his pic with his new car with the “I own a convertible you ambassador driving jackass” look . I hate the fact that he tries to rub in the Americanised status time and again.

I have nothing against him. Just that, I wish he doesn’t become one of those NRIs with the “You Indians” outlook.

The Days of our Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:29:00 +0000

I am 25. Some 220000 odd hours have gone by since I started breathing. At the end of it all, I analysed our lives and the events and the experiences throughout and realized…..

For a major part of our life, the experiences are normal. Nothing worth staying, just hazy, liquid memories of events that we have a faint recollection of. Often times, we chuckle when we remember a regular day bothering us like hell. We just wanted to get over it. The pressure of the day’s work and the feeling of comfort afterwards – we chuckle at both.

Time and again we have momentary excitements. We get excited for events, that don’t matter in the larger scheme of things, like the neighbourhood girl who comes to the terrace at 5:45 in the afternoon, like the football match we scored in. But as it happens more often than not these excitements just die down, go into a quiet slumber.

But there are times, when we are truly elated, when our hard work pays off. The rigour and the turmoil give results. The elation of the moment and the profound serenity afterwards just stick with us for the lifetime.

On the contrary, there are points where our anticipation of a positive outcome gets our hopes high and then we are struck by a bolt of lightning. Everything vanishes in a flash and it hurts bad. Sometimes haunts us for life.

Again at other points, we are the only ones responsible for building up anxiety in our own lives. In the pursuit of that elusive serenity, we stress ourselves to the limit. That flickr of the glowing light at the end of the tunnel is what keeps us up. Sometimes we get it, Sometimes it becomes the way of life and sometimes we feel the pain and give up.

To sum it up, We are pretty much like our dicks. It’s the same phases that it also goes through.

Pyaar ka Paunchnaama

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:16:00 +0000

I knew it’s a bad day.

I slept off after dismissing the alarm which was set to wake me up for “the morning jog” (I’ll explain the double quotes later). An hour later I had the worst nightmare in a month although it was broad daylight and I was ten minutes past my office time.

The pile was cleared. Worse, the top half was cleared.

When you have four days in a week to exhaust the multiple pairs of formals, you hardly care. The stack in your wardrobe turns into a pile on the chair in your bedroom. That was the pile. And sadly the couple of “wearable” pairs were on the top.

When I woke up, the maid had started washing the clothes. I asked her to check if my wallet was in one of the pockets. She found it and returned with a look that instantly reminded me of a fresh-out-of-a-blue-blooded-engineering-college-grad-in- IT trying to justify to his team lead the two lines of code he had written instead of copying and pasting from the module provided to him.

Anyways, my wallet was wet. The notes and the last 2 pieces of my stock of visiting cards which I had saved for a client I was meeting later in the day were wet too.

I was late for office. With a wet wallet. No visiting cards. And No clothes to wear

I rummaged through the wardrobe to check if I could find something. At last, I got a pair of semi-formal trousers and a shirt from the college days.

The bigger ordeal was in store. To fit into those clothes. Somehow I managed to put the button in the hole and close the zip. I was reminded of the dreaded course of Engineering days – Strength of Materials and the bad-hair-mad-eye professor who taught us that course. Just wished that had I paid attention in his class, I could anticipate the impending damage to the fasteners and my reputation. Every passing moment in that attire was like watching a Shahrukh tear-jerker with the girl friend. You just want it to pass.

Now came the moment of truth. To face the inner self. When I stood infront of the mirror, I pitied my girlfriend more than me. Why was she with me? The love handles had become pouches where I could easily conceal and smuggle a couple of packets of heroin. The buckle of the belt shined like the crescent of the moon eclipsed by the football like fleshy protective cover of the beautiful things called abs.

I suddenly realized why she wanted me to run every morning. Why she had set the alarm on my cell? Just that she wanted that when we came close, the first touch to be intended rather than accidental. Ohh, How lovely she was?

But then I contemplated, the paunch was her fault. When we go out, she wants to taste multiple items, eat not more than a couple of spoons of each and not waste food despite knowing that I’m no David Blaine. What can I do but pack that treasure house to the hilt just making it roomier for the next time.

The Sketcher's Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:01:00 +0000

I am a sketcher by profession, rather out of compulsion.
I sit on the pavements near India gate holding a card that reads – “Get your sketch done in 10 minutes.”

I see people -hordes of them - foreigners who seem truly inspired by the architectural grandeur around, groups of young men who are more interested in the mini-skirts than the grandeur and newlywed couples from the villages who are simply subdued by both - the grandeur and the mini-skirts.

Every now and then, a group of people pass by and there's one who is interested in getting his/her face sketched. Sometimes it’s a young girl who gets her father to agree. Or at times it’s a middle-aged govt. employee who is curious because he had never posed for anything before other than the passport photo that now testifies his identity – his driving license, his Voter I-Card.

There are faces – typically average faces. I wouldn’t remember them all. But every time I start with the sketch I’m in a dilemma – the sketcher’s dilemma- the incongruity between the conscience and the truth

Many a times I’ve sketched unmarried young women. They sit on the sidewalk facing me giving a wry smile that just accentuates their cheek bones. I start with the eyes. For me the perfect pair of eyes is the start of a beautiful picture. Then the nose, the cheeks and finally the body…
The dilemma catches upto me fast. The prude artist in me wants to represent the exact features that she has. But the romantic wants to make her beautiful. For once I want the young lady to feel proud of herself. But the talent of an artist lies in converting the canvas into a mirror.

When I’m painting a man with a deformity – protruding teeth, a deep scar on the cheek – I develop a sense of compulsion to remove the blemishes and the picture that he is not but he always believed he was. But I am there to replicate not to create.

The dilemma that haunts me perenially: Should the sketch be of the subject or for the subject?

Confused

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:31:00 +0000

Steel. Entertainment. Banking. Education. Software. Consulting. Where do I fit? Well, in short, I’m all messed up in the head. I’m lost. Growth. Big Money. Easygoing life. Meaningful work. Nice locations. It’s again all messed up.
Being confused is really a dangerous situation to be in. Sometimes it seems easy to let go of the controls from my hand and put my life on auto-pilot. But then at other times, I feel there actually is no auto-pilot. What I’m doing is just having a free-fall. The only thing that I see then is the rugged terrain underneath which’ll just shatter me into pieces the moment I hit the ground.
Confusion. But why can’t I deal with it?
Is it because of the teenage dreams that have not yet matured into realistic ambitions, I wonder. Or is it because I just develop blurred prints of the dreams. All colours mixed. No clear outlines. Wanting a utopic life against the very notion of practicality.
Sometimes I think I’m confused only because I’ve stopped being me. I’ve started feeling a part of the herd. The need for parity has clouded the feeling of individuality. Outcomes have gained precedence over the doing itself.
Society, I realised in all these days of confusion, is a big maze with illusionary walls. All the paths are dark and beaten and it makes you see the bright lights and picturesque paths on the other side, but the moment you jump the wall, its dark again and everything else seems bright.
But one thing I’m now certain of is that the confusion is just like clouds in the sky. Most of the times I see a white one floating across. Smile at it and ignore it. But sometimes there are lots of dark ones casting a gloom and pouring down on my life and I always thought I can’t do anything but get wet in the rain.
Better late than never, I understood that there is another way to deal with it. Get an umbrella. (I’ve found mine.)

Bombay* – the dream

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:47:00 +0000

(*I might invite the wrath of the Shiv Sena, the MNS et al for using the colonial version to refer to their heart, Mumbai. But for me, it was, is and always will be Bombay. The inertia of the very name is way too difficult for me to shrug off)
I was brought up in Bhubaneswar. When my class-teacher asked me to read aloud the name of the states and their capitals to the class, I put extra stress on the syllables of the name of my city. As far as I remember, it was a very big city when I was born. But still, I could ride my bicycle and traverse the municipal limits of my hometown as a child. I never witnessed a traffic jam which lasted for more than half an hour. Dogs chased cars on the highways. Ambassador cars were still a status symbol. Then I grew up and the city kept shrinking and shrinking as I went to larger and still larger cities.
During those schooldays, Friends and relatives who visited Bombay, painted very fascinating and contrasting pictures of Bombay. Sometimes my imagination made it the wonderland of Alice. Sometimes it was the Sin City. And my desire to experience the city kept on cementing with each picture painted by my adolescent brain. But nevertheless, I was always awed by Bombay. Blame it on Bollywood. Blame it on the quintessential Bombayite ‘cool dudes’ whose acquaintance I gained at some point or the other. Blame it on my close friends who stayed in the city for a couple of years and created an aura around the very name – Bombay.
As the skyline of the city was visible from the window of the aeroplane, I suddenly got a kick – “This is it then. This is Bombay.” It’s been more than a fortnight, yet the city has not ceased to amaze me.
Life is fast and people are busy. Even the sun respects this. It does a couple of hours of extra service everyday. It makes me jealous when I see the kids in my apartment playing cricket till seven and I silently curse the Sun God for being impartial to my part of the world. Not that I would have been a great cricketer otherwise but because I would not have spent hours searching for the ball lost in the bushes in twilight and get thrashings at home later.
The local trains – a unique experience in itself. I was travelling on a busy route this Sunday. The compartment was jam packed and to me it was Madame Tussauds with a population crisis. Everyone was a statue. I felt like tickling the people around me under their arms to make sure they were for real. A sporadic phone call or an occasional cough helped me restrict my emotions.
And no description of Bombay is complete without the Marine Drive coming into picture. The crowd of thousands yet each one indifferent to the other, just sitting there cross-legged, watching the crabs on the boulders, mist in the eye and dreaming with open eyes. To end in Ayn Rand style : "There was the sky, the ocean and the beautiful queen's necklace."

N.B: I hope Bombay dreams are sweet.

Doing nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 22:44:00 +0000

I’ve not posted anything since January.
In my defence, I’ve been very busy doing nothing.
That’s very difficult I must admit. I religiously put in all the 15 odd hours that I’m awake these days practicing “doing nothing”. Since I’m one of those “fast-learners” and “quick-adapters” (If you doubt it, then ask my employers who gave me a job offer after hearing about those virtues), I have got the hang of it quite easily. It’s just been a month since my holidays started, yet I’ve almost mastered the art of doing nothing.
Doing nothing is not just being idle it’s much more than that. In fact, it’s ironic that you do a lot of sensible things and yet the people around you feel that you are doing nothing.
Some facets of doing nothing:

I’m following TV soaps. In fact I also watch the repeats of the serials on Zee TV, Colors, Star etc. I’m appreciating the heights of absurdity that a man(director) can reach. But still my mom feels I’m doing nothing.
I sit on the terrace in the evening and see the sun setting. Actually I am trying to find out myself if the infra-red rays really damage the skin or not. But my neighbours feel I’m doing nothing.
I’m writing this blog. I’m thinking that I’m preaching about a classical art. But all of you feel that I’m, actually, doing nothing.

[N.B: Now that I’ve started posting once again, I’ll try to update it AFAP. (F for frequently) ]

Scent of Women

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:14:00 +0000

This post won’t add any value to your life. It might have many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. It isn’t a feel good post either. It’s not exciting , not like those stories on ISS.net. So you may better stop here.
If you still persist on listening to my non-sense, it can mean either of the following:

You derive sadistic pleasure by checking out substandard creations of incapable people.
You are jobless and hopeless, which also means being a final year student.
If you are still reading, then you sure are suffering from depression and need psychiatric advice. There are 1000 better things to do than what you are doing at present.

…………..

Let me tell you an interesting fact about Bitches. (No, I never meant women by that. If you, even for a fraction of a second, correlated women with bitches, then apart from being a sadist, hopeless moron in depression, you are also the worst kind of chauvinistic pig)

Bitches are genetically evolved organisms who are known for slyly copying a special form of martial arts, from their feline sisters, popularly referred to as the “Cat fight”. It’s a highly sophisticated combat technique used by them to reciprocate their love for each other in public.
It involves rapid moves (typically faster than the speed of light) afflicted by one on the other without actually causing any physical damage. However, a recent study conducted by some eminent scientists deduced that the moves are not fast in absolute sense but are missed by the naked human eye, which tends to be fixated at vitally unimportant parts of the bitches’ bodies.
Catfights are very rare phenomena like the blue moon. You should consider yourself lucky if you ever witnessed one. Or as the legendary Barney Stinson said “ A man should always inform his bro about an ongoing catfight, no matter what”

…………..

What’s the scent of Women?
Typically, that of perfumes.

Indian Railways

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:21:00 +0000

I come from family that has been closely associated with Railways for generations. My Great-grandfather served the Indian Railways(albeit under the British Raj) and so did his sons (my grandfather and his brothers) and till date my uncles also continue to be associated with the Indian Railways as officers in some or the other department. Now I don’t boast of being born in some royal family, but being a heir to the family of Railway officials I do have an outward sense of carrying forward a legacy. So this post.

I thought of coming up with a fancy title for this post. But Indian Railways- the name itself fancies a lot many people by the scores of fabled and legendary stories associated with it.
In fact if we critically analyze, we can trace back our freedom struggle to Indian Railways. Gandhi was thrown out of a train compartment, and he fell on his knees. When he stood up, he was the Mahatma. So What if it was in South Africa? It can be considered as Indian Railways or rather Railways of Indian Origin. If we consider Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Lousiana, as an NRI just because his father was probably of Indian origin, so why can’t the train carrying a couple of Indians be called Indian?
Secondly, Indian Railways was instrumental in creating Heroes during India freedom struggle. Had there been no Indian Railways, what would have Chandrasekhar Azad and his companions looted at Kakori? If there was no Kakori, how would have Indian National Congress known about the revolutionary faction and strengthen its stance?
Furthermore, Indian Railways have played a significant role in upholding Indian culture,engraved in the form of its caste system. Till date, the Brahmins and Kshyatriyas, the Kings and Kingmakers(read Ministers and politicians) travel 1st class, Vaishyas (the petty traders) travel 2nd class and the Shudras (read blue collar workers) travel 3rd class. Since Manu didn’t make any provision for common man, they still don’t get reservation in trains.
The most remarkable of features of Indian Railways has been its consistency. It has boasted of stations where till date no train has arrived on time. The consistency in being late is simply awesome.
More consistency can be seen in the speed of trains. When Kajol ran in DDLJ to board the train, she was able to catch the running train. When Adrian Brody ran in The Darjeeling limited, he was able to catch the running train. When Ayesha Takia ran in Dor, she was able to catch the running train. The trains have consistently remained slower than humans through the ages.
This very fact has cosmic connotations. No matter how hard man tries, it’ll never be able to create a machine better than itself. God’s creation is supreme and reigns over all mortal erections.

Fake IPL Player: Redefining Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:46:00 +0000

This is my article published in the Pan-IIM marketing magazine “The Looking Glass” published in December 2009. Download the magazine here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lord Almighty along with the Calypso King decided to take the attack on to the Bubblies. The Phoren babas were happy when they saw Appam being slaughtered. Prince Charles of Patiala was all tensed up but Bhookha Nan and Kaan Moolu were having a very good time with Sandy Baddy Babe.
This may sound gibberish to many. But those who have ever come across the Fake IPL Player’s blog at any point of time would be laughing their hearts out. This blog has become a sensation in the cricketing world. But at the same time it has also made several great traditional marketers sit up and take notice.
What is this hype all about?
Just a couple of days before the start of the IPL 2^nd season in South Africa, a blog was launched by an anonymous person, who claimed himself to be a member of the Kolkata Knight Riders Squad. Throughout the IPL he kept sensationalizing the intra-team conflicts. Humour and Suspense- his two weapons- which made the followers want more of it.

The result
Although Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) kept up their dismal performance, they have emerged as the strongest IPL brand. According to the IPL brand Value Scoreboard 2009 pub lished by UK’s Intangible Business in collaboration with MTI Consulting, KKR top the board with an estimated brand value of $22.3 million. As Richard Yoxon, the International Director of Intangible Business puts it :

"Winning games is not enough to build a successful sports brand. Teams need to engage the local community, attract star players who inspire a wide audience and develop a strong marketing communications programme."

Further, according to a report published by Business Standard, the peak ratings of KKR matches on SET MAX channel were among the highest at around 6 per cent of the universe of cable viewers above the age of 15 year.
As a source representing one of the sponsors summed it

“From an advertiser’s point of view, we have got a lot of mileage and media space for the right and wrong reasons. The fact that it has managed to attract television viewership and on-ground support from spectators speaks a lot about the brand KKR”

This may be a coincidence. But surely Fake IPL Player has popularized the two relatively new strategies of – Anti-Marketing and Buzz Marketing.
Anti Marketing
After studying marketing campaigns and trends for several years, Indrajit “Jay” Sinha, an associate marketing professor at the Fox School of Business and Austrian marketing professor Thomas Foscht, discovered that effective campaigns go against what traditional marketing preaches. They have together published a book “Reverse Psychology Marketing: The Death of Traditional Marketing and the Rise of the New “Pull” Game” which identifies and analyses the new marketing trend.
According to the book --

“Traditional marketing campaigns are focused around customer orientation. They offer too much choice, confusion and sales pressure, resulting in customers’ boredom, cynicism and irritation. Less is more with present-day marketing. Customers now crave simplicity, authenticity and exclusivity”

“Fake IPL Player” blog did exactly the same thing. Instead of blowing own horn, the author tactically cooked up stories about infighting in the team. This created a sensation for the cricket crazy masses which in turn strengthened the KKR brand. As they put it “No publicity is bad publicity”
There have been a few examples of successful anti-marketing in the past. One such significant example is that of Steven Singer Jewellers. It has successfully executed a marketing campaign – “I hate Steven Singer”. As a result it has become a landmark jeweller in the Philadelphia region.
Buzz marketing
A marketing strategy which entices individuals to pass on a message to several others, thereby resulting in the exponential growth in the reach of the message and its effectiveness.
Buzz marketing is a viral marketing technique that attempts to make each encounter with a consumer appear to be a unique, spontaneous personal exchange of information instead of a calculated marketing pitch choreographed by a professional advertiser. Although the concept of Buzz marketing is not new, but the way Web 2.0 is used these days, it has opened up several avenues for the new age marketer.
Such marketing strategies grow by leaps and bounds, which brings in an analogy with the multiplication of viruses.
This was the case with the Fake IPL Player. It didn’t spend a single pie. But it reached thousands. Overnight it became the talk of the town. It used a simple free user friendly web resource, blogger, which spread through word-of-mouth communication. It realized the fact that getting one interested user (or customer) will eventually result in several others getting interested in the product. More than 8000 followers of the blog stand testimony to this fact.
Uncontrolled Conversation: the mantra of new-age advertisements
Traditionally brands discouraged uncontrolled conversation on social media and read too much into the controlled conversations in a simulated environment e.g. FGDs, In-depth Interviews etc. But simulation and controlled conversation twist the facts to a certain extent thereby affecting the outcome of the data analysis as done by the market research agencies.
Uncontrolled conversation would let people vent out their emotions without any constraints. This would in turn give marketers better insights into consumer behavior.
Fake IPL player’s blog generated a greater buzz for Team KKR by encouraging uncontrolled conversation. Thousands of comments were posted in response to each blog post. This added flavor to the blog and generated further interest in the blog as well as the KKR team. This in turn resulted in the soaring TRPs of the KKR matches.
The lesson
Some claim the Fake IPL player is a real life cricketer while others, at the same time, consider it a marketing gimmick of KKR, Shahrukh Khan et al. Whatever it is, but for sure it has taught all the established and budding marketers a lesson. It’s not about the big bucks spent on advertising and promotion, but about innovative marketing channels and creative strategies. Analyzing the right media channel and the right creative message is far more fruitful than the elaborate but outdated marketing and promotion practices.
Welcome to the new ‘fake’ world.

Recession spoils men and brightens up women

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:41:00 +0000

I found an interesting piece of information in the daily updates sent to my inbox by investopedia .

It described the Men’s Underwear Index as

An unconventional measure of how well the economy is doing based on sales of men's underwear. The reasoning behind this measure assumes that men view underwear as a necessity (not a luxury item), so sales of this product should be steady - except during severe economic downturns, when men will wait longer to buy new underwear. The notable decrease in underwear sales is said to reflect the poor overall state of the economy. Conversely, when underwear sales pick up, the economy is considered to be improving.

On the other hand as per a report published by the economist

RECESSIONS mean that Ferraris stay in showrooms and designer dresses on shop racks, but lipstick bucks the trend: in hard times, women buy more of it, as it is an affordable indulgence. That, at least, is the idea behind the “lipstick index”, a term coined by Leonard Lauder, the chairman of Estée Lauder, a cosmetics firm, in the 2001 recession.

Hence if you see thread bare underwears hanging from the clothesline on the terrace of a building but a woman with a glossy lips coming to collect it, then you know the doomsday is near.

For a whole lot of other ways to spot a recession, check this report

Post-Lehman World: Is there a room for marketing derivatives?

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:25:00 +0000

(This is my article published in Financial Express on 21st Sep, 2009.)
In the early part of this decade, Lehman Brothers pushed the volumes in global derivatives market by vigorously marketing over-the-counter and exchange traded instruments amounting to billions of dollars. Investing firms across the globe considered them as the best ‘weapons’ for hedging and managing risk from interest rate fluctuations, corporate bond defaults etc.

At the same time Warren Buffet wrote in his company’s annual report

“I view derivatives as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system. Basically these instruments call for money to change hands at some future date, with the amount to be determined by one or more reference items, such as interest rates, stock prices, or currency values. A pile-on effect occurs because many derivatives contracts require that a company suffering a credit downgrade immediately supply huge cash collateral to counter-parties. This demand can then throw the company into a liquidity crisis that may, in some cases, trigger still more downgrades. It all becomes a spiral that can lead to a corporate meltdown.”

In hindsight Buffet seems to be the Nostradamus who predicted the future of derivatives. But now the billion dollar question is: “Will the world ever again see a surge in derivatives marketing?” Considering the fact that investors have burnt their fingers in the Lehman fire, there is scope for boosting the derivatives trade but due caution needs to be exercised now.
First, the use of customized contracts should be discouraged altogether by requiring higher capital levels for firms holding them (this is also meant to discourage dealers from deliberately creating customized contracts as less-regulated proxies for standardized contracts). Secondly, a mandate should be passed that trades in customized contracts be reported to a regulated trade reporting facility, in order to provide some level of transparency in this portion of the market. A move towards transparency would mean better future for derivatives trading. Transparency would come in two forms—detailed position and trade information available to the regulators, and aggregated information available to the market. It should be noted, however, that merely making the information available does not by itself solve the transparency problem. Someone has to review the data, spot the problems before they become too large, and take appropriate action. This would certainly present a considerable burden to the regulatory authorities as well as to market participants.
Finally, an important aspect of supporting derivatives market is to encourage relationship marketing between providers and customers, rather than individual transactions. For at least 15 years commercial banks have pursued relationship banking programmes to target key corporate and institutional clients. This concept can be extended to the derivatives industry. Enough care should be taken to boost the levels of trust, interdependence and profitability. On the whole it can be concluded that the future of derivatives marketing lies in having smart regulation that offers security but doesn’t stifle innovation.

The B-School Crap

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Top-notch B-Schools train you for a successful corporate career in life ahead. This I feel is a somewhat oversubscribed school of thought.

Source: freekvermeulen.blogspot.com

Mark H. McCormack in his book "What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School" writes

Business demands innovation. There is a constant need to feel around the fringes, to test the edges, but business schools, out of necessity, are condemned to teach the past.

Being in the grind of a B-School for the last 1-yr , I feel that what they teach you as a part of curriculum in a B-School is even more detrimental than what they don’t. You don’t know things that they don’t teach. But what’s worse is that you know whatever they teach is absolute crap.

George Bernard Shaw rightly said

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

What they teach you at B-Schools?

Frameworks: These are like paint-brushes given to chimps. Some great artists once made master-pieces with them and you expect each and every chimp to replicate it using the divine power of the brush. In the end what you get is an assortment of colours, not even fit for your toilet. For me this is the perfect example of an antagonym- Frame’works’ seldom seem to work.
Cases: These are historical deliberations. You are made to study the Trojan War and then you are asked to elaborately discuss the Trojan-horse strategy. You very well know that no sane man today would enter the enemy territory inside a wooden horse but still you are required to critically analyse the situation.

The pointlessness in B-School classrooms is obvious. The sooner people realise it the better.

Zen and the Art of CV making

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 09:59:00 +0000

Robert M. Pirsig in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance illustrates the metaphysics of quality.

Taking cues from the philosophy as described in his book , I extend it to the Art of CV making (specially in case of MBA students).

If a CV is judged closely, things will be noticed that don’t make themselves evident in the beginning.

First, is that the CV, so described, is almost impossible to judge unless you already know how it is made. The underlying contexts that are essential for primary understanding are gone. Only the immediate surface impressions is left. A CV tells you that the subject was a member of the team which organised an international technical symposium but it doesn’t tell you that his role was limited to serving bottled water to the dignitaries on stage.

The second is that the words “efficiently” and “successfully” and all their synonyms are present in abundance. No clear metrics and value judgements are expressed anywhere, just cold facts. Successfully executed a live-project for XYZ Co. would at times mean that the concerned person slogged for 50 hours and got the job done. On the other hand, it might also refer to a report copied from ABC and sent to XYZ.

The third is that there is a knife moving here. A very deadly one; an intellectual scalpel so swift and so sharp you sometimes don't see it moving. You get the illusion that all those parts are just there and are being named as they exist. But they can be named quite differently and organized quite differently depending on how the knife moves. A student adjudged the champion in a certain event creates an illusion that he masters the concerned art. But what has been slyly cut by the intellectual knife is that there were 2 contestants in total and the other never participated in it.

Happy and not GAY

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:44:00 +0000

I’m happy that the high court of Delhi has read down the Section-377 of the Indian Penal Code. Thus, same-sex relationships have been decriminalized. This has spread a wave of ecstasy in the LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) community and they are busy celebrating this historic judgement.

I’m happy for the judgement. No, it’s not that I have changed my sexual preferences; neither do I have any special soft corner for the LGBTs. I’m still as straight as a die. It’s just that this ruling serves some of my selfish motives.

A picture of the Indian demography will help me prove my point. Numbers can’t be refuted. In the total Indian population, there are 1098 males for every 1000 females across all age groups.

[Source: Wikipedia 2006 Estimate]

The criminalization of same sex marriages and relationships forced the gay men to eat into the pie of beautiful, marriageable women. Now that they are out of the race and they do also drag their partners out, my chances of dating a beautiful girl has increased manifold. So it’s time to rejoice for all 20 something straight men that are still single.

Further, it’ll be easy to get a lift from the girls. Walking hand-in-hand with a friend would be treated as a public display of love and I would easily be taken as a gay. Studies show that girls feel more comfortable in the company of gays. Every other man is assumed to have abundance of lecherous instincts. So pretending to be gay would make me luckier in getting a lift from a girl. Now which sane (read straight) man on this earth wouldn’t like a long drive with a couple of beautiful hands at the steering?

Another article states that:

Online gay and lesbian adults read more blogs than heterosexuals — 51 percent vs. 36 percent — and are more receptive to blog advertising, according to an online national survey.

Thus I hope to have more number of readers following my blog and hope to make some money out of advertising-targeting-gay community. After all, it’s time to apply some marketing funda to leverage the potential of the blog.

Being on the other side of the table

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:36:00 +0000

It was just about one year ago that I was running around with my CV getting interviewed for the different committees on campus.

I was asked to blabber, I was asked to speak extempore, I was asked to formulate and plan new events on the spot, I was asked to roleplay. I felt comfortable at times and I felt miserable at times. I loathed some of my seniors for screwing me inside out. At times I felt disgusted when I was asked to wait outside the interview room for more than an hour.

I felt giving interviews was the most difficult task.

But the picture’s very different on the other side. For the last 3 days I have been interviewing people for my committee.

It’s even more challenging. Sitting in a room for 5 hours at a stretch. Going through numerous CVs. Asking myriads of questions. Making the guy on the other side comfortable. At the same time ensuring that he’s thinking on his feet. Repeating the same words for a zillionth time. That’s all about interviewing.

This was a great learning experience. I could learn a lot from the juniors. I gathered the meaning of person-job-fit for the first time in my life.

Apart from that, I have a new found respect for the HRs now. It’s really difficult on their part to measure the intangible qualities for a candidate. Indeed it’s a very strenuous to judge if the current candidate is 70% enthusiastic or just 55% enthusiastic. At the end of the day, I believe it’s always the question of personal bias.

Who's right?

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:16:00 +0000

Science and mathematics are the most rational branches of study. They don’t give you jitters by justifying conflicting hypothesis with the same fervor.

But Thanks to a discussion forum of Microsoft which has now shattered my belief in the exactness of technology. [Link shared by Dipesh]

The forum’s thread goes like this:

Problem of a guy

I've noticed that as I copy data/install programs on my Laptop, the weight of the Laptop increases. I have a bad back and am medically limited on the amount of weight I can carry so I need to be very careful not to inflict injury upon myself.

I have also noticed my XBox feels heavier as well (the more games I save or purchase from arcade). I generally don't travel with my XBox so that is not an issue for me, but note that I am having the same results.

My question, what is the weight/file ratio? So for example, how many GB's = 6oz? I dread the day I need a dolly to commute to work with my Laptop.

Comments and Solutions given by others

Every Gigabyte counts as 5oz of extra weight for your computer. There have been cases (in computers with 1Tb of hard drive and more) of people left eMule activated 3 days and when that people returned to the computer, there was a hole in the floor instead. Use MS-DOS to drastically reduce data weight.
I don't think this is just a technology problem. The other day, I was reading one of those MS press books (One of the Thick ones) and towards the end of the book (after reading it for about three hours) I wanted to get up for a glass of water and use the toilet eventually. But, here's when a strange thing happened. As i was about to get up (I usually read in bed) my head was so heavy that I couldn't get up. I roughly estimate the weight increase ~564.32 grams. Well, I attributed this phenomenon to the amount of information that got stored in my brain during that time (Notice the similarity there?) Based on my experience, what I would suggest is turn the laptop off, leave it like that for a few hours and then you can carry it around without risking breaking your back. You might risk losing your data but hey, your health is more important.
Actually the weight of your hard drive decreases after formatting it for the first time. On an unformatted hard drive the bits are spread in weird order all over the drive and there's big chaos. This causes strong magnetic forces and there's a constant push-pull between the bits. This consumes a lot of energy and according to a smart guy called Einstein energy has weight. When formatting the drive for the first time the bits are put in order and also stay in order when writing data to the disk thus the energy decreases and thus the weight actually decreases and doesn't increase.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on this one. The fact is that the equation to which you refer (discovered in the XVIIII century, by Lineus Torvaldus) involves gigabytes AND giggawatts
The correct form is:
"weight of data equals gigabytes divided by giggawatts"
or
wD=g/g
Basic algebra shows that g/g=1, so
wD=1
Divide both sides by D...
w(D/D) = 1/D
thus eliminating (D/D) it renders.
w = 1/D
Which reads: "The weight is the inverse of the Data"
This is the formal mathematical proof that the more data you store, the LESS the computer weights.

From my personal experience, Studying for a substantial time does indeed increase your weight. If I cover a fair part of the syllabus before entering the exam hall (which is rarely the case), I feel all tensed up and heavy but when I don’t have a clue about the subject then I feel weightless and serene. After writing an exam (analogous to transferring the data to another disk), I feel even lighter.

But then Einstein proved it otherwise. Now I’m all shaken up and paranoid about this technology stuff. SOS.

Kambakkht Ishq

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:05:00 +0000

After a lot of days, I was fortunate enough to catch a movie on the first day of release.

"Kambakkht Ishq" aka Incredible Love. Yes, that’s what IMDB has translated it into. Incredible Love if translated back becomes “Aviswasaniya Pyaar” [courtesy Google Translate]. Now I’m sure, those guys who run the IMDB site don’t respect our national language nor do they care for Bollywood. That explains why the master flicks like Gunda, Loha have been kept out of the IMDB all-time top 250 list despite of achieving cult status in our country.

Coming back to Kambakkht Ishq. I would translate it into something like “Damn Romance”. Suits it better I guess. I don’t want to post a spoiler. So I would rather give reasons for watching the movie and a few statutory warnings.

Here are the reasons why you should watch the movie.

Gay rights have been legalized in India. Gays Celebrated. But for the prudes, who still believe that men can only be charmed by skimpily clad beautiful women, this movie would give a chance to rejoice in these times of despair. There’s enough of bare skin.

Yeah, this movie is for those who were at some point or other driven into a state of insecurity and suffered from inferiority complex because of John Rambo and Rocky Balboa. Now dudes, if you ever had anything against Stallone, please drop it for the good. He has turned into a father figure who now is blessing the lesser known Indian stars with the same hands that once carried the missile launchers. He’s now learning Hindi and saving sexy Indian girls from rogues.

Above all, the most important reason for watching this movie is Akshay Kumar. The devil is back in action.

Now just a couple of words of caution: If you are carrying your brain along with you anytime anywhere you go, Please heed my words. Lock it safely in a case and leave it at home. Else you won’t get the real pinch of the movie.

One more thing, don’t confuse it as a Karan Johar movie because of the K in the beginning and the 2 KK in the middle. So don’t expect too much mush. All die-hard fans of emotional outbursts who cannot tolerate more than 15 minutes of a movie without either the hero or the heroin breaking down into loud sobs are hereby requested to refrain from watching the movie.

History repeats, but Improves

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:27:00 +0000

A long long time ago this happened when Men and Monkeys were friends. This is the story of that age when a guy had ten heads and another could sleep for six months without a break.

[Video Link]

A little later but still a long time ago this happened. It’s again a tale of miraculous times. A blind couple had 101 children. Yes, they did it without even seeing it once.

[Video Link]

A weight-lifting competition and an archery competition for winning beauties- that’s really sad.

But this is what our time has to show them-the losers of the yore. The perfect Swayamvar.

[Video Link]

AIDS: Alert Indian Drama Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:37:00 +0000

India TV has been my favourite news channel for years. The sole reason being that they provide exclusive sensational content which makes one traverse a parallel world.

One more thing I really appreciate about the India TV reporters is the effort they put in broadcasting a news clip. Using their supernatural ability, they map the mental vibrations of animals and inanimate objects. Then decipher it using some cryptographic method which may be known to rest of the humanity in about 135 years. At last, they voice the mapped thoughts using theatrical voice modulation which holds the power to stun the world.

Recently as I was going through the news clippings of India TV, I came across the “Alert Viewer” Series – India TV’s effort to encourage citizen journalism.

Here is the 1st clip:

How alert and brave really Indian viewers are!

Brave enough not to have fled the scene frightened by the snake and alert enough to ensure that neither the snake nor the cat were disturbed during the fight.

The commentary further glorifies the supernatural ability of India TV news broadcasters.

Another Clip:

Bravo! This alert viewer scripts another golden story in the annals of Indian TV News broadcasting. He was alert enough to have seen the monkey and then record its behavior.

Now I feel like a moron, who never took a monkey seriously. This indeed is a serious lack of alertness on my part. I can do nothing but remain dumbstruck at the ability of India TV to not only have narrated the feelings of the fashionable monkey but also take cues from the monkey’s behavior and point out the bollywood number it was singing.

Hero No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:48:00 +0000

The Mid-day reports:

A struggling writer was trying to get an audience with Govinda to give him a narration of his film titled Baarish. He used whatever connections he had to get few precious minutes with Chi Chi.

He gave Chi Chi a narration and told him that he wanted him to play the lead role. At the end of the meeting, Govinda hugged him and said that he'd loved the story and promised him that he would do the film." He told the excited guy, 'I will not only act in your film, I will produce it too.' The writer went back to his chawl room and told all his friends and family how Govinda had agreed to be a part of his film and how he'd even finance his directorial debut. But his happiness was short-lived.

Late that night, when his phone began ringing and he saw the name Govinda flashing, he picked it up on the second ring. He answered the phone and heard Govinda sound very upset.

Then came a barrage of maa-behen gaalis from the actor. Govinda told him, "Aaj ke baad mere saamne mat aana. I will kill you. You came and narrated the script of Baarish to me, and now my children have got a bad cold, and they are suffering. It is all your fault."

It’s very nice of the dumbhead of a writer to have titled his story “Baarish”. I just wonder what trauma he would have caused our dear Hero No.1 had he written a story entitled “Aag” or “Tezaab”.

Dare to think beyond

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:51:00 +0000

A recent article published in Careers 360 blames IIPM of fake advertisements. The site claims to have done an internal investigation of the issue and has published its findings.

A student interviewed for the articles says

"IT IS VERY EASY FOR YOU TO ASK WHY I DON'T SPEAK UP"
Sir, I have a mom, who is a heart patient, a father who is a teacher in a school, and a village which looks up to me. It is very easy for you to ask why I don't speak up. If I do, my people would come to know I did a degree which is useless, my company will sack me, and the bank would strangulate my dad for the loan instalment." says Ramesh*, a pass out from IIPM. Ramesh like most of us comes from one of the tier 3 towns of our country. He completed his BSc and sought salvation in an MBA. But he chose IIPM, thanks in no small measure to the full page multicolour advertisements he and his parents frequently saw, in publications they trusted for ages. He adds ruefully, "Sir, I got a good percentile in MAT (above 90 percentile), and had offers from the best colleges. At least I would have got a recognized degree."
"What did you learn?" I ask. "We are frequently taught by students who passed out from the last batch and work for Planman Consulting," said Ramesh. He fought bitterly and got placed through campus in a company based in south India. The institute promised him Delhi, the company told him that they had specifically informed the placement office of IIPM about their need for people in the south. So he was on his own again. Ramesh smiles at a thought. "I am much better off than some of my friends who got a campus placement in companies where you are paid Rs.200 as commission for every card you sell, and no salary at all." His bitterness creeps through. He goes on. "Sir, 10% of MBAs secure jobs, because we are well-groomed, speak good English, and are well-connected. 50% of us are not connected but have the rest of the qualities, and struggle a bit. The remaining 40% who has neither are already in s***. So the least they can do is to keep quiet."
Ramesh pays more than 2/3rd of his meagre salary to service his loans, lives in a cramped shanty, puts up a brave face to his doting parents, hopes for the best and keeps quiet. While relating events, the brave boy, briefly wavers and with a lump in his throat says. "Maine yeah soch ke ayaa, yeah ek formal interaction hai. Baat karthe karthe bahout kuch bol diya." (I came to meet you, telling myself it is a formal interaction. But as I got talking I spoke quite a lot). All of us look in different directions, and let that moment pass.

This is indeed a serious issue. And such a story is bound to draw flak on IIPM’s page long advertisements and Arindam Chaudhari’s tall claims of “Thinking beyond IIMs and IITs.” Whatever it is, indeed it has been the talk of the town in the campuses with everybody spreading the word through status messages, e-mail forwards etc.

The only saving grace for the organization is that it’s name still doesn’t feature in the List of Fake Universities published by the UGC.

But the recent Madras High Court ruling against ICFAI Chennai thereby banning all the ICFAI educational institutes would be a substantial threat to the IIPM.

Anyways, being a student I can empathize with the students of these institutes who were lured by false claims and have been taken for a ride. Indeed its utterly difficult to handle the burden of a heavy bank loan, a fake certificate and the limitless expectations of parents, peers and others.

Just-In-Time production: the Dell Way

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:17:00 +0000

This is my article published in OpsSession, the magazine brought out by Operations Interest Group, IIM Lucknow.

The Strategy adopted by DELL: Just-in-Time manufacturing
JIT, Just-In-Time is a term usually thought of as describing inventory arriving or being produced just in time for the shipment or next process. JIT is a process for optimizing manufacturing processes by eliminating all process waste including wasted steps, wasted material, and excess inventory. The term also describes lean manufacturing that is dependent upon JIT inventory systems (Term=JIT). The term is commonly referred to the concepts of Taiichi Ohno from the Toyota Motor Company in Japan regarding production. Just-In-Time inventory systems depend upon logistics that include: transportation, warehousing and several strategies for handling the potential supply chain uncertainties. Just-in-time is easy to grasp conceptually, everything happens just-in-time. Conceptually there is no problem about this; however achieving it in practice is likely to be difficult!

JIT has been adopted by a lot of corporations since its inception. But no one has gone as far as Dell. It's well known, of course, for nearly eliminating finished-goods inventory by cutting out resellers and connecting directly to customers. What's less known is how it has transformed the back end of its operations -- its assembly lines and supply chain -- into one of the fastest, most hyper efficient organizations on the planet. Eleven years ago, Dell carried 20 to 25 days of inventory in a sprawling network of warehouses. Today, it has no warehouses. And though it assembles nearly 80,000 computers every 24 hours, it carries no more than two hours of inventory in its factories and a maximum of just 72 hours across its entire operation. To Kevin Rollins, who succeeded Michael Dell as CEO this past July (Dell continues as chairman), inventory is like fish. "The longer you keep it the faster it deteriorates -- you can literally see the stuff rot," he says. The key to this robust production system is a solid process that monitors demand and supply on a real-time, continuing basis. "But when you have basically zero inventory, it's like draining a swamp -- all of the stumps start to show," Dell says. "The problems reveal themselves, and you can take immediate corrective action to fix them."

The New Finance Model in place
The implications of working in this kind of hyper drive are profound. Dell changes the finance model, and it's an enormous competitive weapon. On average, computer makers pay their suppliers 30 days before a PC is shipped to market, bought by a customer, and paid for. But Dell's build to-order model lets it receive payment from its customers immediately -- through credit cards, either online or over the phone. It pulls the parts directly from its suppliers and builds and ships the product within four days. Yet the company doesn't pay those suppliers until 36 days after it receives payment from the customer. So Dell has achieved a cash-conversion cycle of negative 36 days. That means it operates with negative working capital, eliminating the need to finance its operations. Dell turns its inventory 107 times per year -- an astounding advantage over HP and IBM, which flip their inventories 8.5 and 17.5 times per year, respectively. It's a fundamental law of manufacturing that the faster you turn inventory the lower are your costs. To get a slice of its lavish procurement pie, Dell's legions of suppliers must do things its way. They must be flexible enough, cost-competitive enough -- and above all, fast enough -- to compete on Dell's terms.

The Constant drive for development
Dell is every bit as hard on itself as it is on the folks who make its disk drives and batteries. Dell has brought a maniacal focus to shaving minutes off the time it takes to assemble and ship a computer. By studying videotapes of "the build," as they call it, factory managers have slashed in half the number of times a computer is touched by workers. They've counted the screws in a PC and redesigned it so that the major components -- hard drive, graphics card, CD player – simply snap in place. In a blur of synchronized movements, a veteran builder can piece together a Dell PC in three minutes. The software burn and testing, which is powered by Dell servers with enough bandwidth to download the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in eight seconds, takes several hours, depending on the amount of customization that's required. The entire process, from the time the order is taken to when the finished PC exits the factory, is wrapped up in four to eight hours. Dell is always on a mission to outdo itself, and the factory is expected to increase its production by 30% every year.

The Thin White Line: Kanban Analogy
Dell's clout with its suppliers is epitomized by a set of thin white lines on the floor of the manufacturing plant. The lines form a rectangle that fronts each of the 110 cargo bays encircling the factory. Tractor-trailers loaded with parts line up at the bays. When an assembly line runs low on disk drives, a signal goes out. A forklift wheels onto a trailer bed, snatches a pallet of disks, and pulls out onto the floor. When the forklift crosses the white line, a scanner records the shipment's bar code and the parts move from the supplier's books to Dell's. Dell doesn't pull the part until it has a customer order; it doesn't take ownership until it pulls the part.
In effect, that thin white line demarcates Dell's entire supply chain. Dell holds inventory only for the six to eight hours it travels across the assembly line and for the 18 hours it takes for the completed CPU to be trucked to merge center, where the unit is bundled with a monitor and shipped to the customer. Total inventory time: two to three days. Most suppliers, however, are required to stage anywhere from 8 to 10 days' worth of buffer stock in those multivendor warehouses located within 90 minutes of the plant

The constant Pressure on vendors
Dell is hardly coy about pressuring its suppliers to do better. It's a metrics-obsessed organization that measures everything, not least its suppliers' performance. It rates all of its vendors on their ability to compete on cost, technology, supply predictability, and service, and posts their scores daily on a password-protected Web site. Every quarter, the suppliers' executive team meets in Round Rock, Texas, where Dell is headquartered, for a formal feedback session. In these meetings, dubbed QBRs (quarterly business reviews), suppliers are ranked against their competitors. Based on that comparison, they are awarded a percentage of Dell's purchases for the upcoming quarter. Dell is cold-eyed in these assessments, unflinching and unsentimental.

Despite being one of the market leaders, Dell is still relentlessly striving to get better faster; Dell intends to slash $2 billion in costs which will come from manufacturing operations and the supply chain. That will put even more pressure on Dell's component makers. Michael Dell is fond of saying that in the high-tech business, you either grow or die.

Impatience is the new life

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:23:00 +0000

I spend most of my time chatting and so do the folks of the current generation. Telephones got the better of the good old pink scented envelopes. And G-talk and Yahoo! Messengers have got better of them.

Airtel ad celebrates the spirit of this generation “Impatience is the new life. “

It's true. Our generation is impatient. In an effort to type fast, at times we mix up letters, sometimes we type wrong letters instead or else we skip certain letters in a word. And this lands us in a fix many a times.

Some instances from my own experience.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Once I was chatting with a friend of mine. In between, came his statement “…….dude, the T20 world cup was a gr8 thing in the anals of Indian Cricket”

What? The cup was shoved up the ass of Indian cricket. By the way where was the ass? Did he mean Joginder Sharma ? If at all, the cup was in the anals, didn’t it pain?

Then he corrected “…in the annals......”. Confusion cleared.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Another instance. This time it was a female friend “…..Lucky you, all the thongs are fitting well …….”

Pulling my hair. What in the devil’s name did she mean? Did she take me as some kind of pervert who likes to dress up in women’s underwear or did she think me as that man who took pride in stealing women’s thongs? I had a serious insecurity.

But then she corrected “all the things are fitting well……” Sigh of relief. But Why did that sadist who made the keyboard put "O" and "I" together?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Once I was chatting with one of my cousins after a long hiatus. Probably 6 years. He went on “hey, do you remember the days you used to come to my house and help my mom with her work. She used to say you were the incest guy around “

This was a grave accusation and totally untrue. I was dumbstruck. The revelation came as shock. I was thought of as a sexual predator ready to prowl upon anyone within my reach.

He clarified “…nicest guy….” Dear God! Thank you.

Saving Student Shyam

noreply@blogger.com (Praneet Gourav) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:20:00 +0000

To

The Prime Minister, Republic of India

Sir,

I’m a father. I’ve 3 children. Sorry, I had three children. I had dreams for all of them. A few years ago I saw my dreams come true. But then everything changed. A pathetic change.

My eldest son. He was a good boy. The most understanding of all the siblings. He was shy and modest. But he was honest. And I think that was the only flaw in him. He went into one of the best institutes of the country. He was working for a government company when he was murdered. People tell me that he opposed some kind of injustice. And they also tell me that they have registered a case. But I don’t want to be involved in it.

I also had a daughter. She too was a good student. She was studying at a place away from home. Suddenly one day I heard that she was gone. And they had cremated her. They told me that she had committed suicide and I couldn’t have borne to see her body. She was a brave girl. They say there were acid burns. And they also tell me that they have registered a case. But I don’t want to be involved in it.

My youngest son, Shyam, was the most ambitious one. He always wanted to study abroad. Finally last year, he went to Australia. I don’t know how the country is or how are the people. I just know it from the cricket matches. He used to call me and tell me that it was a nice place and he was doing very well. Last Friday, I heard that he was hospitalized. Some people have beaten him up. He’s not the kind who gets into trouble. I’ve heard that it was only because he was an Indian.

I see lots of people complaining about it. They are doing some rallies and candle marches just like Gandhiji did in the old times. They believe it’ll bring justice. They ask me to register a case. But I don’t want to be involved. I know there are people sitting in your parliament who don’t want those cases to be solved. Papers are talking about government efforts to settle things.

I don’t want things to settle. I’ve seen lots of things settled. I’ve seen my eldest son’s file settled. I’ve seen my daughter’s ashes settle. I’ve seen Mumbai Bomb Blast victims settle. I’ve seen Bihar flood stricken villages settle. I don’t want my son’s dead body to settle. I just want my son back.

Yours sincerely,

A Father

Based on : Racist attacks on Indian Students in Australia, Shanmughan Manjunath, Saving Private Ryan