Eat More, Win More, Love More

I don’t know if it happens to everyone but it sure does happen to me. If I cut down on my food, my hunger itself begins to contract. By the seventh day, I am quite full at half of my original intake.

Strangely, I never really realized, but it is exactly the same behavior with a lot of other things too.

Love, you miss them a lot then you miss them little.

Dreams, if you don’t taste success, the hunger slowly dwindles.

Eat more to keep eating more; win more to keep winning more; love more to keep loving more!

Really Disparaging Review of Kurbaan

Cutting a long story short, this is a really really disparaging review of Kurbaan! This has been done to ensure that Messenger Baba shows his true potential and opens his fourth eye!

About time we had some fun on this blog! ..err space! ..umm sphere!

Fitness of the Darwinian Survivor

I don’t believe in luck. The simple argument is that if there is something called luck; somebody should be lucky enough to live forever (physically).

I do however believe in probability. It’s easier to explain the randomness through probability; it’s impartial, it’s unemotional; it’s less distressing if most things don’t happen the way you planned them.

And now even the probability theory is beginning to look so useless. If it’s so random, what is the point of associating probability with it? Even if I calculate the probability of something to be 99.9999% and yet the thing that had a probability of less than 0.0001% happens, what’s the use of chasing the 99% activity? The other point of view is that since that can happen, even if you had a 0.0001% chance of success, you can still emerge on top of those who had 99% chance.

So what does it mean, should we strive for everything? Or should we strive for nothing? Or should we simply espouse the chance game and chase the activity that has a higher probability of happening.

I think success is simply about survival. If you survive, you succeed. Its not about survival of the fittest; its about whoever survived must be the fittest.
PS: Sorry for the rambling; I'd surely edit this post and add some perspective.

Congress' Masterpiece

They cordon off a part of the pavement, the place where the common man walks, blocking his way, forcing him to detour down on the motor infested roads of New Delhi, to put a poster saying "Aam aadmi ke badhte kadam"

We'v indeed matured as a democracy. Now they don't even try to comouflage their utter disregard for what they promise during elections.

Don't just laugh it off. Please go and vote!!

Recycling plant - the desi way

Say No to plastic. Just go for glass. Save the environment.

Issued in public interest by "Cup Crushers" and "Slumdog Recycling Enterprise".

ICICI Lombard - We don't pay claims for cars which are four-five year old (PS: we don't pay claims at all)

A recent article by Indian Express shows that the maximum number of complaints come against Insurance companies.

Guess it wasn't going to take too long for me to get a piece of their BS. The worst part is that its already a lost battle for any of us to fight an Insurance company, since my cost of commute is way more than the 50% of the damages that the Insurance company pays anyway. But as NarayanMurthy said, fighting for the right cause is always a costly affair, more cost intensive than the easier way out.

My car has been in the garage for well over 20 days, and I am chasing ICICI Lombard to pay the claim; the 50% of the total claim value that they would pay anyway. And in the process, I have been screamed at, have had phones slammed upon me, made to wait endlessly on the "you are our privileged customer but please wait while we screw somebody else" customer support line and obviously denied on major part of my claim.

And if you are wondering about the title, thats what I heard from the surveyor, all of those whom I spoke to. "The car is 5 years old, we can't keep paying claims for it"

" Keep paying??? This was the first time I had gone to an insurance company for this car. I wasn't in the country to drive it.

The best thing is this telecaller tells me, that ICICI Lombard has recently been found to be the company with the highest claim paying capacity. Obviously. If you don't pay any claims, your capacity to pay them is going to be the highest.

Anyways, if I have to take it, I'll take it to consumer court and beyond. Atleast one fight, before we lose our faith in the system. We are the next generation of India, the educated, liberated intelligentia who can fight, who must fight. We can't take the easy way out, we must not.

Will keep you guys posted.

Strictly Random

Just so that you know - new-borns, new ventures and blog entries don't go along very well. The former two take so much time and precedence that the latter, the bastion of your cherished literary ambitions, is left mal-new-writ-ioned, to say the least. Paradoxically though, the former two leave your life so eventful that, you can easily fill entries, if you find the time to do so.

To quote one, the other night, I was up most of the night (couldn't sleep so ended up doing some work in amidst a lot of surfing and slept at 6:00 AM). At around 6:30 AM, when kiddo woke up and was crying, I (allegedly, as per wife) murmured in my sleep something to the tune of "I have coded her so well, why is she crying ?" Gets you thinking doesn't it. A pilot after an exhausting flight in a similar situation would probably say "I landed her so well, why is she crying". A lawyer - "I filed her so well", P Chidambran "I GPLed the IPL so well", Sanjay Dutt "I got GPLed by SC so well", Mamta Banerjee "I screwed half of bengal so well", CPI(M) "We screwed the whole of Bengal so well", Arjun Singh "I screwed the next generation of India so well", Manmohan Singh "Sonia ji would know why she is crying, Let me go ask her"

Seriously, the election scene is so dismal and disappointing that I am worried for my country. I guess you are too, and to make matters worse, I believe that post election scenario would be a worse nightmare. I am ofcourse going to vote for I know the power of my vote very well. Every single time, without fail, the guy I voted for has lost the elections.

Coming back to apni life, our new product is coming along well. Its a SaaS based Sales Management/Accounting/CRM suite which should see the light of day in another month's time or so. The past week was left searching for a good domain name, and that was quite something in itself. Imagine, almost every single four letter word .com domain has been booked. At one time, I was typing without looking at keyboard and the site (LCFX.com, LCFK.com PIWO.com) was already registered. We are still looking and in case you've got a suggestion for a domain that's available, do let us know.

Another product currently under development is based around PDF forms based surveys and origination. That's still in development but should see pre-alpha fairly soon.

The best thing is that when you are running your own venture, you can run it as per your ideology. Its not something that you follow just because it came from headquarters 7500 miles away from you, from a set of guys you never met, never had a chance to discuss things with; even if you don't agree with it.

For example, help me understand this. Most companies have punished the hapless fresher. Offers were withdrawn, joining dates have been deferred and recruitment has been frozen for those without experience. And this is happening because the smart assess who are currently in the industry screwed up the economy. So the lame idiot, good for nothing, who got picked up during the high times, remains in the job with a hefty pay package but the new kid with significantly more talent, IQ and significantly less pay is left high and dry. I am not talking about it being unfair or fair, I am simply talking from a very practical viewpoint.

In any case, this year, we are only going to recruit freshers, fresh off the campus, no experience - mandatory.

And I shall very soon be back to showcase the amazing work these talented set of freshers would be doing, so watch out for this space.

Teaser Campaign

We have just developed and rolled out a technology that allows a website to change its look and feel and adapt to different surrounding, scenarios & features.

Was creating a brochure to promote this new product offering, and came up with this. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be using it. Might hurt sensibilities (or sensitivities).

So here it is, just here, as a teaser for all those who would never know what they didn't see. My first product and its first teaser campaign :)

Ihaana

Ihaana, in Finnish means Wonderful or Delightful.

It has an obscure meaning in Pali-Prakrit (contemperory to Sanskrit) where it symbolises the most perfect condition a mind can be in.

There was some article which suggested that the word dhyana in Sanskrit comes from Ihana (spelled jhana where j is pronouned with a ihya) . In buddhism, there are four stages in which a distracted mind can be controlled and concentrated. These four stages are reffered to as Ihaanas.

The Spineless State

They tell me what happened in Mumbai is shocking. The shock is an epilogue to the numerous ocassions when we did not quite express our shock at the ease with which the government brushed aside these repeated threats.

I live in a spineless state. Everytime we try to wriggle back up, another merciless blow knocks us out; and a knocked out person does not express shock!

I am ofcourse saddened by my goverment - by my leaders - those spineless old hags who have insulted me and my country. This could have been prevented, had our politicos not been this engrossed in vote-bank considerations. There has never been any detterent, any that could have been put across gets shrugged out of consideration because one small tiny group makes some noise and decides for the rest of us. Spineless Spineless Spineless!!

Deepest condolences to the family of those brave soldiers and those innocent civilians who paid the price for the ineptitude of a spineless state. I am so sorry for you and your families.

Its time to stop talking and do something. And yet, eventhough I am seething with anger, I can't think of anything that I can do to make sure that things change.

I promise I shall get into politics because we can't let the Amar Singhs and Shivraj Patils to run the country. And by entering into politics, I mean I shall vote at every single election. I shall make it a point to educate people about their political rights and how the politicos used their religion, their caste, their diversity to divide them.

I shall not pay bribes but I'll take it a step further that I shall actively expose those who take bribe or don't do their jobs well. Lets make our system more accountable because MC Sharma and Hemant Karkares lost their lives because of ineptitude of some coast guard staff or the laxity of a cop against the underworld which helped them setup or the greed of some intelligence guy who was bribed into not passing on the information.

Mumbai! I respect your spirit but don't let your spirit become a cover for governmental callousness. 125 is a number but everyone of those men,women and children were just like you or me. 125 families which have been scarred for life. Its a loss which can not be supplanted.