The Dark Lord

Builder Politician Nexus

2010-04-30T18:55:00.003+05:30

I am completely opposed to Shiv Sena and MNS because of their ideologies. So that I can point people to the wrongdoings of these goons when the next elections come, I'm pasting the following article from Sakal verbatim.

The article is also accessible from the esakal site here.

UPDATE 1 - Another article exposing the Sena's true color

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Goa-Sena-chief-booked-for-extortion/articleshow/6291776.cms

बिल्डर आगरवाल, सांकला यांना अटक

सकाळ वृत्तसेवा

Friday, April 30, 2010 AT 12:45 AM (IST)

Tags: crime, pune

पुणे - बालेवाडीमध्ये एकशे चार गुंठ्याचा भूखंड बळकविल्याच्या आरोपावरून प्रख्यात बांधकाम व्यावसायिक आर. के. आगरवाल, रवी सांकला, नगरसेवक राजेश पिल्ले व माजी नगरसेवक अजय भोसले यांना राज्य अन्वेषण विभागाने (सीआयडी) गुरुवारी सायंकाळी अटक केली. या चौघांच्या अटकेमुळे शहर व पिंपरी चिंचवडमधील राजकीय क्षेत्रात व बांधकाम व्यावसायिकांत खळबळ उडाली.

याप्रकरणी प्रदीपकुमार दोरजे (वय 55, रा. डीपी रोड, औंध) यांनी फिर्याद दिली आहे. त्यानुसार हॉटेल "ल मेरिडियन'चे संचालक रामकुमार ब्रह्मदत्त आगरवाल (वय 52, रा. ब्रह्मा पॅरेडाईज, मंगलदास रोड), बांधकाम व्यावसायिक रवींद्र नृपतलाल सांकला (वय 52, रा. ढोले-पाटील रस्ता), पिंपरी चिंचवड महापालिकेतील राष्ट्रवादी कॉंग्रेसचे नगरसेवक राजेश गोविंदस्वामी पिल्ले (वय 43, रा. अजमेरा कॉलनी, पिंपरी) व शिवसेनेचे माजी नगरसेवक अजय जयवंतराव भोसले (वय 39, रा. नाना पेठ) यांना अटक झाली आहे. जमीन बळकावणे, अतिक्रमण करणे, अपहरण करणे, गुन्ह्याचा कट रचणे, दुसऱ्याच्या मालमत्तेचे नुकसान करणे आदी आरोपांन्वये त्यांच्यावर गुन्हा दाखल झाला आहे. भोसलेने नुकत्याच झालेल्या विधानसभा निवडणुकीत वडगाव शेरी मतदारसंघातून शिवसेनेच्या उमेदवारीवर निवडणूक लढविली होती. त्याच दरम्यान त्यांच्या मोटारीवर अज्ञात व्यक्तीने गोळीबार केला होता. सुदैवाने तो बचावला होता. त्या गुन्ह्याचा तपास अद्याप लागलेला नाही. पिल्ले हा सराईत गुंड असून, त्याच्यावर गंभीर स्वरूपाचे अनेक गुन्हे दाखल आहेत.

'या गुन्ह्याचा बारकाईने तपास करून कारवाई करण्यात आली आहे. अटक करण्यात आलेल्या चौघांना शुक्रवारी शिवाजीनगर न्यायालयात दुपारी हजर करण्यात येणार आहे,'' असे 'सीआयडी'चे प्रमुख व अतिरिक्त पोलिस महासंचालक एस. पी. एस. यादव यांनी सांगितले.

'सीआयडी'चे अधीक्षक शरद शेलार यांनी दिलेल्या माहितीनुसार दोरजे यांची बालेवाडीमध्ये 104 गुंठे जमीन आहे. ती त्यांनी आसनानी या बांधकाम व्यावसायिकाला विकसित करण्यासाठी 2001 मध्ये दिली होती. त्याच्या बदल्यात 19 हजार चौरस फुटांवर बांधकाम व 14 लाख रुपये देण्याचा त्यांच्यात करार झाला होता. मात्र, या कराराबद्दल दोरजे व आसनानी यांच्यात पुढे मतभेद झाले. त्यामुळे आसनानी यांनी "कारिया बिल्डर्स'ला कराराची पूर्तता करण्यास सांगितले. मात्र, त्यांच्याकडून तो व्यवहार पूर्ण न झाल्यामुळे कारिया बिल्डर्स यांनी 2006 मध्ये या व्यवहाराची सूत्रे आगरवाल व सांकला यांच्याकडे सोपविली. या दोघांनी पिल्ले, भोसले व त्यांच्या 25-30 साथीदारांच्या मदतीने 25 मार्च 2006 रोजी रात्री साडेअकरा वाजण्याच्या सुमारास दोरजे यांच्या भूखंडाचा ताबा घेतला. त्या वेळी दोरजे यांचे फलक फेकून देण्यात आले. तसेच त्यांच्या तीन रखवालदारांचे अपहरण करण्यात आले होते.

दोरजे यांनी त्या वेळी चतुःशृंगी पोलिसांकडे तक्रार केली; परंतु त्याची दखल घेण्यात आली नाही. त्यांनी पाठपुरावा केल्यावर 6 एप्रिल 2006 रोजी अज्ञात आरोपींविरुद्ध गुन्हा दाखल करण्यात आला. त्याचा तपास व्यवस्थित होत नसल्यामुळे दोरजे यांनी उच्च न्यायालयात याचिका दाखल केली. त्यात या गुन्ह्याचा तपास "सीबीआय' किंवा "सीआयडी'कडे सोपविण्याची त्यांनी मागणी केली. न्यायालयाने गुन्ह्याचा तपास 29 डिसेंबर 2006 रोजी "सीआयडी'कडे सोपविला. त्याविरोधात आगरवाल व सांकला यांनी उच्च न्यायालयात याचिका दाखल केली. पुढे ते सर्वोच्च न्यायालयात गेले. सुमारे पावणेदोन वर्षे त्यांनी पोलिसांच्या तपासावर स्थगिती मिळविली होती. 2008 मध्ये ही स्थगिती उठल्यावर "सीआयडी'ने तपास करून गुरुवारी कारवाई केली. ""या जमिनीच्या संदर्भात सुमारे 12 वेळा व्यवहार व करार झाले आहेत. आगरवाल व सांकला यांनी ही जमीन नंतर संजय बाफना व श्‍याम सोनवणे यांच्याकडे सोपविली होती. त्या सर्व व्यवहारांचा तपास सुरू आहे,'' असे अधीक्षक शेलार यांनी सांगितले. उपअधीक्षक नरेंद्र गायकवाड पुढील तपास करीत आहेत.

गोपनीयता बाळगून कारवाई
आगरवाल, सांकला, भोसले व पिल्ले यांना "सीआयडी'ने संगम पूल येथील कार्यालयात यापूर्वी चार-पाच वेळा चौकशीसाठी बोलविले होते. तेव्हा ते आले होते. गुरुवारीही त्यांना नेहमीप्रमाणेच चौकशीसाठी सकाळी अकरा वाजता बोलविण्यात आले होते. ही चौकशी सुरू असताना दुपारी साडेतीन वाजण्याच्या सुमारास त्यांना ससून रुग्णालयात वैद्यकीय तपासणीसाठी नेण्यात आले. तेथून परतल्यावर त्यांना अटक झाल्याचे तपासाधिकारी व उपअधीक्षक नरेंद्र गायकवाड यांनी त्यांना सांगितले. अटकेचे वृत्त शहरात पसरताच बांधकाम व्यावसायिकांत प्रचंड खळबळ उडाली होती. आगरवाल यांच्याविरुद्ध त्यांच्या सुनेने दोन वर्षांपूर्वी बंडगार्डन पोलिस ठाण्यात तक्रार दिली होती. याचा गुन्हा त्यांच्यावर दाखल आहे. त्या गुन्ह्यात पोलिसांनी अटक करू नये, यासाठी त्यांनी उच्च न्यायालयातून अटकपूर्व जामीन मिळविला होता. ही बाब लक्षात घेऊन "सीआयडी'ने कोणत्याही प्रकारची पूर्वकल्पना न देता चौघांवर अटकेची कारवाई केली.

आणखी तपासाची गरज
पुणे शहराच्या परिसरात जमिनीच्या किमती अस्मानाला भिडलेल्या असल्यामुळे दहशत दाखवून जमिनी बळकविण्याचे प्रकार वाढत आहेत. आगरवाल व सांकला यांच्यासारखे मोठे बांधकाम व्यावसायिकही त्याला अपवाद ठरलेले नाहीत, हेच या प्रकारातून सिद्ध झाले आहे. या दोन्ही बांधकाम व्यावसायिकांच्या सर्व व्यवहारांची महापालिका, पोलिस व महसूल खाते यांच्याकडून चौकशी करून त्यांनी अशा पद्धतीने आणखी काही गैरव्यवहार केले आहेत का, याचाही शोध घेतला जाण्याची गरज आहे. तसे झाले तरच सामान्य नागरिकांचा शासकीय यंत्रणांवरील विश्‍वास कायम राहील.

Partly Hedging EMI through renting your home

2010-02-14T00:50:00.003+05:30

I've heard this from two friends now. Someday it had to happen and it kind of makes sense too.

Many folks are buying homes; obviously with fat EMI's. Since EMI's are becoming burdens, some folks, who have to have brought properties in posh localities are turning towards giving out these homes on Company Leases or Service Apartments and themselves shifting to houses which warrant lesser rent.

The difference between the incoming rent and outgoing rent eases the burden till some extent from these fat EMI's. I think if possible everybody should adopt these policies. They make complete economic sense.

For e.g. a friend of mine bought a 1BHK in Viman Nagar for which he pays an EMI of 22K. He left that apt and moved to a cheaper neighbourhood which only has rent of 12K and managed to give his 1BHK for about 15K on lease to a company. The company now uses it as a guest house.

In the process hes making 3K which reduces his EMI exposure. 3K might not be a big deal, but its still something substantial.

If you keep the emotions of renting out your own home apart, this makes perfect economic sense. I would however advise everybody to do a proper cashflow analysis before thinking this option as setting up furniture etc at the new location could significantly add to the expenses.

अमन की आशा - A completely wasteful effort by the Times Group

2010-01-07T15:35:00.005+05:30

Just yesterday I started seeing a lot of ads on Times Now (a Times Group affiliate new channel) about a new effort to promote peace among India and Pakistan. Aman Ki Asha. This, according to me, is a wasteful effort of time and money by the Times Group.

Its been a while now that we are trying to reconcile with Pakistan.
Every time we are the ones who take the first step with a Benevolent heart.
And every time we are the ones who take the blow.

Why don't people see the underlying differences between India and Pak and see that both have different purposes in life, different outlook and different fundamentals. Hence, they cannot be friends. Hence, peace cannot be established. Even if it does come into force, its going to be short lived.

India and Pak are fundamentally two different countries. It's been this way right from the start.

The basis of foundation of Pakistan was just territorial identity for Muslim people in India. It was not established on the grounds of any other fundamental.

It would be wrong to comment about the basis of establishment of India, since it always just existed.

India wants to progress. Its tired of hundreds of years of poverty and apathy. And its trying hard for it. Admist all the chaos it exists in, its efforts are still paying off. There are many problems, but its tackling it one by one.

Pak's fundamental agenda is unknown. Its foundation was based on religious grounds. After that, its fundamental reason to exist became opposition to India and a planned effort to weaken India by a number of covert operations.

Its unknown whether Pak wants to develop or Progress. Its unknown that industries are setting up and actually flourishing in Pak. We never hear of any development going on in Pak even in International Media.

Although, maybe, ethnically we shared a lot in common at one point and also still do. Our minds have changed. The language maybe the same. But thinking is not.

We have changed so much now that we cannot come back and shake hands.

Peace can be expected if the basic fundamental on which Pak is operating on changes. It seems to inherently believe in violence, than peace.

Why then, are we making such an effort to create peace.

I think for the time to come, its going to be a cat and mouse chase for us. Pak plots terror and Indian intelligence/Army/BSF tries to foil the plan. Most plots will fail some of them will be a success.

That's how I see the relationship. This is how its going to remain.

I nominate myself to the stupidity award of the year!

2010-01-05T16:12:00.002+05:30

This is going to be a long post. So, please bear with me till then.

It all started when I realized that my Demat account was lying inactivated from quite some time. Also, from a long long time, I hadn't seen what was the state of my stock investments since my online Demat account was inactivated.

Upon checking with the ICICI call center, I found out that I need to submit some documents at the local branch and within a day or two the account would be good to go.

In the daily chores and busy life, I again put this issue on the back burner for a week. At the start of the next week, I finally convinced my mind to take this issue on priority and started finding the address of the nearest ICICI Prudential Branch office.

I weakly remembered that at some point in the past that I had seen a ICICI Prudential Branch Office somewhere near Deep Banglow Chowk on JM Road. Going with the hunch that I will find the branch easily, I took off for JM Road on that bright Monday morning before going to office.

On reaching the Deep Bunglow Chowk, at the exact place that was imprinted in my mind, I found that there is no trace of anything called ICICI Prudential. The whole place seemed invaded with mobile repairing and selling centers. I was pretty frustrated and tired at that point, but realized that it was my mistake in the first place not to inquire for the right branch address beforehand. Feeling pretty defeated, I left for my office from there.

As soon as I came to office, I logged on to ICICI Prudential's website and found out their branch addresses. To my delight there was a branch right across Inox theater, which is just a stones throw away from my office. I decided that I would visit their office tomorrow and put this issue to rest, once for all.

Tuesday dawned, and after having breakfast I again started off for the ICICI Prudential Branch which, as per the document on the website mentioned, was located at Amar Avinash Plaza, near Inox theater. I reached Inox theater and found a building called Amar Avinash Corporate City. Not finding the mention of 'Plaza' anywhere, I thought this might be it (the document might have gotten it a little wrong). I had to climb up 5 floors as the lift was not working.

When I couldn't see any hoarding of ICICI Prudential, I asked a security guard where it was. He quickly pointed out that it was in Amar Avinash Plaza!, a building which was 20 meters beside Amar Avinash Corporate City. Feeling 'Ah Crap!', I climbed down 5 floors and entered Amar Avinash Plaza, finally. The frustration built up a little when again the lift at this building was also under repair. Not having a choice, I climbed up again 5 floors and reached a place which had a board of ICICI Prudential!

Feeling a little elated, I asked the security guard (Just to be doubly sure that I was on the right floor). The security guard pissed me off. He pointed out that the offices had moved to JM road!!

This now was actually was becoming a chase. Earlier I went to JM Road, couldn't find anything and came here. Climbed 10 floors. And this guys now tells me to back to JM Road! I was thoroughly disappointed with what was happening with me that day.

Gulping down the frustration, and keeping the final goal (of activating my account) in my mind, I decided to put this matter to rest today at any cost, and started back for JM Road.

I finally found the right building at JM Road, realized that I was searching at the wrong spot in my earlier trip and felt a little stupid myself of doing all the wrong things to start with.

This time the office was on the 3rd floor and the lifts were working. This soothed my nerves a little. I reached the reception, and with a sigh of relief, asked the receptionist to help me out with re-activating my Demat account.

She gave me a confused look and asked a couple of folks working around her to respond to me. Pop came the reply from one of them, "Sir, this is ICICI Prudential. We handle Insurance plans. For Demat you'll need to go to ICICI Bank".

I stood there dumbstruck with my stupidity. The ladies there realized that this guy seems stupid to come to this Branch without thinking. They stifled their laughter coz' it would be really bad to laugh on somebody's face. For them, they had a joke of the day to tell and laugh on.

I for one couldn't figure out for the life of me why I was looking for a Prudential branch to start with. What the hell was wrong with me? What was I thinking all this time that made me look so stupid.

Hence, today, I nominate myself for the Stupidity awards, if there is anything like this.

Snehal gets engaged with Neil

2009-12-30T19:05:00.004+05:30

Yesterday finally another milestone was reached in my life. My only sister, Snehal got engaged with her long time sweetheart Neil. That rested a lot of my worries.

It's hard for me to put through my emotions to people, but I was pretty worried about Snehal all through the time she was in Mumbai. Her relationship with Neil was going around from quite sometime (3-4 years to be precise).

Now that its made official, gave me a sigh of relief.

The reason of my worry was that couple of my really close friends couldn't take their relationships to the next level, due to several circumstances. Somewhere deep in my conscience I had this fear lingering around and dreaded if something like that could happen to Snehal.

However, everything is fine and we are now gearing up for her marriage in May, 2010

Low Calorie Drinking

2009-09-23T18:55:00.002+05:30

I recently switched to low calorie drinking. Sheer pressure from my conscience to reduce weight. I'm 78. I need to get to 70 at least.

Beer was my favorite. I fell in love with it when I discovered Corona. And after that there was no looking back. Recently, when I discovered that American regular beers had on an avg 200 cals per pint, I started thinking as to what would Indian beers have. I'm sure it will be more. We Indians don't care about calories when we drink. Hell, I'll be called stupid if I make that statement among my buddies.

So I've switched to Whiskey, Soda and Water. Yes, Totally Desi style. I contemplated keeping the Coca Cola mix, but then Coke is itself 400 cals per 350 ml, so dropped it.

My friends Rohit and Pramathesh had been advising this from months to me. But somehow I just liked beer, then and never paid heed to their advise. Rohit used to think I'm mad not to drink Whiskey or 'daru' in general. Beer, it seems, never fell into Daru category.

So, folks there I am. Your buddie again. I'll drink Whiskey with you now. No more beers. They make me fat.

I think I made a change

2009-09-17T17:54:00.003+05:30

I always wonder whether I can be the person who can make a little change for the larger good of humanity. I think the other day, I kinda did it.

Nobody in Pune follows traffic rules. In fact, flouting a rule right under the nose of a Traffic Police Officer is the new high in this city. It's a little better in the evening time since the traffic is intense and cops are everywhere. However, at around 9-30 or so, the cops finish their duty and leave the lives of the people in the hands of Traffic Lights. And people in this city almost hate traffic lights, or just choose to ignore their existence.

However, as a good Samaritan, I always make it a point to follow Traffic rules 99% of the time. I admit that I have my own weak moments, but I'm trying to get over them.

So the other day, it was 9-30pm and I was returning home from work. The traffic light at Pune central chowk was red and quite blatantly people were flouting it and zooming off. Out of a pure call of conscience, I just decided to stop till the light went green. For around 5 seconds, bikes, cars trucks, just passed me by. Some got a little irritated that I was standing right between the road blocking their way. Notwithstanding their stern and disgusted looks I just continued to hold my base.

Around 10-15 seconds passed by and another biker who actually seemed like he will join the gang and zoom of, probably saw me and had a call of conscience too. He also stopped. This seemed to spread like a virus and one by one cars, trucks and other vehicles also seemed to stop. For this to happen at 9-30pm in the night is a big deal. A really big deal. People stopped till the light turned Green after a cool 90 seconds. That's 1 1/2 minutes people. This probably might be considered for Limca book of records or something. :)

From my perspective, by persevering to hold my base there in spite of people not caring a shit, I think I just nudged a couple of other folks' conscience, which always existed, but needed to be nudged a little to kick start into action.

I kinda felt satisfied that day; for just having done one honest good deed for me and my fellow beings.

Osho Gem

2009-07-01T00:28:00.000+05:30

Life is a verb. Life is not a noun, it is really "living" not "life." It is not love,
it is loving. It is not relationship, it is relating. It is not a song, it is singing.
It is not a dance, it is dancing. See the difference, savor the difference.

Axis Bank USD Travel Cards - A really bad product

2009-06-24T19:27:00.004+05:30

I had to travel for a short 3 month trip to the US. Our company Capgemini tied up with Axis bank for providing USD Travel Cards for meeting our day to day expenses in the US.

For those who do not know what's a cash card, imagine it as a Debit card which can be used at any merchant establishment which accepts VISA cards. The company initially deposits a certain amount of money up front in the card which can then be used. Once the money exhausts, additional money can be added. This makes the travelers life easy coz' he then does not need to carry a lot of currency with him.

Axis card provides such cash cards as one of their products. However, these cash cards are almost useless and incur a lot of loss to people who've bought these.

Firstly, whenever you use them at any of the ATM's a charge of $3 is charged. Whether you withdraw $20 or $200 the charge remains constant.

Secondly, most people would generally do online shopping when they visit the US since you get better deals online. These cash cards do not work online since they do not have the concept of a "Billing Address" and "Security Code", which are normally present on any VISA cards. This shortcoming makes this product really useless.

Thirdly, guess what? $1 charge if you need to change your ATM password! Yup, you read it right. If you forgot your ATM password and need to reset it, they happily charge you $1 to do that. Have you heard any service charging you $1 for changing the password on their cards? This is ridiculous and outrageous.

Fourthly, their web interface is really user unfriendly. When you try to register they take you to a site called iconnect, which is the name for their core banking website and it asks for a "Corporate Id" for the login. When asked to their Customer Service execs they say that we have no idea about the iconnect. It's supposed to be used internally by the bank employees!! Frustrating to the core, isn't it?

I'd really advise anybody to carefully choose a Travel Card product and save themselves all the hassles mentioned above. Pls evaluate all the products out there before making your choice.

Bad business ethics - Kotak Mahindra Bank

2009-03-30T15:48:00.003+05:30

I wanted to take a moment to write about a really bad business ethic followed by Kotak Mahindra Bank (from now called KMB).

I have a home loan via KMB. Recently I did a spot check and found that I was paying around 13% interest on my loan. I read about the SBI Happy Loan scheme which is giving Home Loans at 9.75% and decided to switch.

As a part of submitting documentation about my property to SBI, I had to collect some documents (viz, Foreclosure Letter, Loan statement and property NOC) from KMB. I called up a representative called Etesh Jandial who handles my case at Kotak and requested him for these documents. Pop came a reply that it will take 7 working days for him to procure the same. On arguing with him about why such a long time, he said, the documents come from Mumbai head office and take time. I stopped arguing and waited for exactly 7 working days and gave him a call again.

This time he said that the documents are available and I should collect it from the Sorabh Hall branch. I went in there and met him. He told me to wait and went inside his cabin. I could see him in his cabin which was luckily visible from the reception where I was sitting. He was typing away something on the computer and then collected some printouts, stamped them and then came out and handed over those documents to me.

Notice that this entire process took 1/2 an hour and was done on the fly when I came physically to the office. So the 7 working day crap which I was given on the phone was just an excuse to delay the process. This entire thing was just an attempt to fool me which I am pretty pissed about.

Its so disappointing to know that professionals of such a large and reputed bank follow shallow and disgusting business practices. I'd really advise anybody to not deal with Pune office of Kotak's Home Loan department.

Freedom of Speech

2009-01-29T12:44:00.000+05:30

Your opinion is yours, my opinion is mine
If you don't like what I'm sayin'? Fine
But don't close it, always keep an open mind
A man who fails to listen is blind
We only got one right left in the world today
Let me have it or throw The Constitution away.

- A song by Ice T

Amazing quote by Steve Jobs

2009-01-09T15:49:00.003+05:30

While reading a article on "How to network at Startup events" I came across this incredibly profound quote by Steve Jobs. Here is the snippet :

Networking is very personality driven and for several folks, networking doesn't come naturally. Lots of people are simply shy and apprehensive of approaching strangers and starting a conversation. Making small talk is difficult for many people and the awkwardness simply shows. “Aise kaise kisi se bhi jaake baat karu ? Aur kya baat karu ? “. If you ever have gone through such thoughts, then don't worry, you aren't alone. But more than seeking solace in the fact that there are others in the same boat, you should try to work on developing your networking skills.

Here’re a few tips:

1) First and foremost, you’ll need to try and overcome the fear and apprehension of networking with strangers. Since this is an inherent personality trait, you’ll need to work hardest on it. One of the tips that comes to mind is the following excerpt from Steve Job’s graduation speech at Stanford:

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

The Triple Turtle Point

2008-12-17T15:07:00.003+05:30

I got Subu's message yesterday to Wish Kama, Pramthya and all the others who were involved in the TTT incident a happy birthday. He considered that as a new life for them and hence asked me to wish them happy bday.

In the evening I met Anu and told her about this. We started reminiscing the incident immediately and had a great laugh. All the memories just flooded back in the head. In fact I feel that we should be paying a homage to Pramthya's Maruti which got Martyred that day saving their lives. May her metallic soul rest in peace.

(I am going to write the whole TTT incident here when I get time)

Remember, I and subu were on the Kinetic (that was the first time Subu ever got his Kinetic out of the 5 km radius from his house) and were mere spectators of the incident. By the time we reached the spot (maybe 2 mins after it happened) the world had turned over. Anu was badly hurt in her head and was acting dizzy. Kama was completely rattled. Was Saini there? I don't quite remember.

I can visualize Pramthya still leaning by the Pole (maybe electric) and looking up to the sky trying to think what just happened and what will be the repercussions back home.

(Need to complete this post)

Recommend/Review Doctors/Clinics/Hospitals across India

2008-08-27T12:36:00.002+05:30

Taking a cue from the success of Goolti.com I started realizing that there are many spaces where Public reviews/opinions will be very useful.

Hence, I've launched docstock.in, a review site very similar to goolti.com. Its intended at finding the right doctors, clinics or hospitals across India for satisfactory medical treatment.

Please visit the site and contribute for public good.

Thanks,
Harshal Vaidya

del.icio.us becoming a frail website

2008-08-04T13:25:00.004+05:30

Look at the pic. I logged into del.icio.us and it says that you've been blocked since you accessed the website too quickly. Whom are they trying to fool? Its a public website and why the fuck should we users be bothered as to what speed we access it with?
Time to switch to a new bookmarking service.

Osho Gem

2008-07-20T00:50:00.000+05:30

The intelligent person hesitates, ponders, wavers.
The unintelligent never wavers, never hesitates.
Where the wise will whisper, the fool simply declares from the housetops.

Why don't I start an ISP in my own colony?

2008-06-23T13:11:00.003+05:30

This question has been on my mind for last couple of weeks. My colony, Amrapali Society , lies in a tight spot as far as location is concerned. It exactly doesn't come into Kalyani Nagar, where internet connectivity is available from most of the well-known providers. Nor, does it comes into Ramvadi etc where connectivity will probably be present as well.

Even BSNL says that the landline infrastructure in my colony is too old to support broadband and hence they can't provide connectivity there. Hence, unfortunately it lies neglected by most of the providers except Tata Indicom.

Now Indicom is supposed to be providing good connectivity in Kalyani Nagar as well as other areas of Pune. I know a bunch of friends of mine who are satisfied with the service. However, their service in our colony has no words to describe. Pathetic is the closest i can get. I log a complaint with Indicom customer care center almost every alternate day.

Tired with all this, a thought came to my mind that why not I myself start a broadband ISP for my colony itself. I could purchase a commercial connection from Tiger Telecom which I contacted long time before and then distribute it through a wireless network established through Meraki routers.

Dunno what to do with this but the idea sounds pretty convincing to me.

Shahrukh Khan in a skin whitening cream ad

2008-06-18T11:29:00.002+05:30

The latest ad of Fair and Handsome men's skin whitening cream features SRK. This is really disgusting. As if SRK had lesser brands cajoling him to endorse them. As a huge superstar and a public figure person I think its a social responsibility of SRK not to give out the wrong idea to the public.

The ad shows young guys who are dark not getting enough attention from good looking girls. SRK comes with a solution "Fair and Handsome" fairness cream for men, after applying which, the chicks suddenly seem interested in the dark men.

With this SRK is affirming the belief that Gora is better and Kala is not so. At least the less educated or gullible public will definitely buy into this. I think SRK should be ashamed of this. There are a thousand other brands waiting for his endorsement. He could go with any of them rather than this one which does injustice with the society.

Why I rejected Manas Webhosting

2008-06-02T14:01:00.002+05:30

During my search for hosting providers in India, I seriously considered Manashosting.

The offer of unlimited web space and unlimited bandwidth was very attractive. However, surprisingly these folks have all these plans for Windows hosting only! I couldn't believe it at first. Who on earth will host over Windows? Especially startup folks who are generally cash-strapped.

Unfortunately I had to drop my plans to sign up with them since I needed a LAMP stack.

Why I chose ixWebhosting over ipower and rackspace

2008-06-02T13:54:00.002+05:30

I've been running Goolti.com out of ipower's servers for quite a while. Although the service is great there are some potential problems with the service.

1) I can't get subdomain level traffic stats.
2) The number of subdomains are restricted.
3) I can't get an email like sales@mydomain.com for all the domains I host over the hosting account. I can get those kind of email addresses only for the domain that I signup with when I buy the account.

I got all these services at ixWebHosting.com hence I am going with them. I just want to document this down here so that someone searching on google for the same reason gets this and this probably helps him out to make a decision.

Google suddently blocks my Adsense Account

2008-01-28T15:13:00.000+05:30

Out of the blue I got a mail last week that my Addsense account was blocked. I had started earning a decent amount through it lately as my website started getting some popularity. Supposedly this was due to click fraud. This site is running from a year. If I really wanted to indulge into click fraud I would have done this long time ago. I went ahead and filled in their online appeal form to re-instate my account, but there has been no response from Google Adsense.

Its really unprofessional on Goolge's part to block account without giving any explanation or any statistics. I am sure I didn't click my advertises over and over, so I desperately want to know who did and what was done ? However, there is no way to know since Adsense team won't co-operate.

Reading about this issue over the web it seems like there are many many webmasters who have gone through this and have eventually switched to a different ad network. This unprofessionalism is the usual arrogance from Google. I have really no other choice but to switch over to either MSN or Yahoo Publisher Network .

US mobile industry shows signs of growing up

2008-01-23T15:55:00.000+05:30

One of the most startling surprises for an Indian guy when he lands into US is that for getting a cellphone along with a SIM you need to sign a contract of 1 or 2 years. This seems ridiculous but thats how the US mobile industry was. They were still in 1960's while the world had moved ahead.

I read at GigaOm today that Cingular has finally grown up and realized this mistake and has started offering SIM cards at $25 without any commitment from the customer. This will start a revolution across the US I believe. Most people will switch out of their contracts immediately or after their current contracts expire.

This is a great releif. At least someone in the industry grew up. Hope that others follow AT&T.

ApnaCircle's Spam-o-Maina

2007-12-31T13:00:00.000+05:30

Long ago I read a review on some blog that Sabeer Bhatia started a Linked-In clone for India called ApnaCircle. Since I know Linked-In's popularity in the US, I got excited of Apnacircle's prospects here in India and joined it.

Whenever I join or register on a new website I don't give out my primary email address. However, noting the fact that this venture was started off by Sabeer I thought that the website will be pretty professional and would respect people's privacy and follow stringent anti-spam policies. So, I registered over there with my primary email address.

After joining in I noticed that there were not so many people out there on the website and decided to give it some time to mature and market itself. With Linked-In's backdrop behind my head I was pretty sure that this venture would go somewhere because this was one untapped market. The need for personal social networking was filled by Orkut so what remained was professional social networking. Thats where I though ApnaCircle will fit in.

All said and done within a month I started getting emails from folks on ApnaCircle who were interesting in Dating! let alone professional networking! The women who sent out dating invitations often had Russian names like Svetlana and Maria. This was pretty surprising to me. The admins at ApnaCircle seemed not to notice this at all.

Later after another couple of months I got invitation from ApnaCircle itself for checking out their new news section which also focused on local news by the city you lived in !

I thought ApnaCircle was started for Professional Social Networking ! What the hell happened to that? They've gone into news and spam dating invites ! Crap ....I've now signed out of that shit good for nothing social network. I've also insructed GMail to categorize ApnaCircle mails as SPAM!

I think Sabeer really doesn't have any talent to start and run online businesses at all. With Hotmail I guess he fell at the right place at the right time and got lucky. All this later ventures like Arzoo, The online office thing and this ApnaCircle have gone to the dumps.

Conclusion: The Professional Social Netoworking space in India is still open and is up for grabs for anybody who has moolah for advertising.

Cold water baths

2007-12-30T11:11:00.000+05:30

Today sadly I announce that I have succumbed to the prevailing conditions at my place. Let me explain.

Our house has a perpetual water problem. We get water only 2 hours in a day in the mornings. Later part of the day is essentially dry.

Taking a bath in winter generally demands for warm water. We have 2 geysers installed. Sadly due to the lack of water none is used :( . We now use gas for heating up the water and then have a bath.

We do have a reserve water tank. However, for the water to flow with some force the water tank needs to be at least 15 feet above the roof of the house. 15 feet and above ensures good flow. Our tank is just around 5-6 feet overhead which renders it useless for passing it to the geyser and expecting hot water out of it. We live in a flat. Taking the tank up 15 feet is just not possible.

To add to the woes I am a staunch environment conservationist and do not like heating up the water on gas which is very energy inefficient. I finally found out a way to end up these worries by switching to taking a cold water bath. No energy requirements and no need for waking up early in the morning to take a bath. Cold water bath is the way to go.

Nivea skin whitening cream

2007-11-10T10:35:00.000+05:30

I just saw a horrid advertisement on TV. It was for Nivea skin whitening cream for men. It claims to whiten your skin. I am at a loss of words to describe by disgust over this ad.

What's wrong with Dark/Wheatish color which we are gifted with? So many people look smart/beautiful with this color. There is seems to be nothing wrong with it! Don't we like girls with wheatish color? Don't we ogle at darker, fit, curvy females? I don't know about you guys. But I always seem to do ! :-)

I understand that the older generation had a problem with Dark color, especially during occasions of matchmaking and marriage. But this cream is targeted towards young men.

When I was in the US, I used to love African American girls. Dark color naturally appealed to me.

Color has nothing to do with good looks. Good looks are defined with only
by the shape of the body and smart dressing and good hair style.

When will our Indian psyche understand this ?? Or, Will it ever?

Guyana - We Indian's don't seem to care

2007-10-23T21:15:00.000+05:30

A month ago I saw this girl on a dating site. She claimed in her profile that she was an Guyanese East Indian. Her profile looked right. Photos looked good. So I thought why not contact her and see whether she is interested in me.

Pretty quickly she responded back and gave her phone number. I called her and we started to talk on the phone. By now, I've gotten pretty good at charming women on the phone at least. She expressed a desire to meet somewhere in Midtown Manhattan for lunch. Within the next couple of days we decided a time and went out for lunch.

The girl was pretty interesting to talk but not really my type. Nevertheless, its always fun to hold a conversation with an absolute stranger and we talked for about an hour or so. She told me that she was born and brought up in Guyana. A country in South America east of Venezuela. She also mentioned that 53% of population of Guyana is East Indian. This was unbelievably shocking to me. I am the kinda guy whose pretty much read all history there is to India ever written anywhere. Well, more or less. I was really curious to know the history behind this and started off reading about Guyana over Wikipedia.

As the story goes, Indentured Labor traveled with the British for construction and farming from India to Guyana and another country called Suriname. These people are their descendants. Slowly and gradually the population of East Indians out there has grown to a little over than 50%. In Suriname its around 70-80%. We practically run the governments out there. The president of Guyana is a guy called Bharat Jagdeo. Wow, just imagine....

I knew this kinda story with Mauritious, Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies, but South America ? No way ...

I just wish the Indian Govt establishes ties with these far and forgotten countries and gets them some attention in mainstream Indian media. It will be also great if history books taught in the school would cover this aspect of Indian history rather than just giving us an overdose of Shivaji and that fucked up asshole Gandhi.

Austrailian Policits with Respect to India is such a sham

2007-08-15T21:01:00.000+05:30

A month ago I read an article that Oz won't sell Uraniam to India since India hasn't signed the NPT. This was for 1 reason. Ozzy politicians would pee in their pants if the US figures out that their ally's trying to sell nuke fuel to India. You see, Uncle Sam overshadows.

Oz has no fucking say in what their country should and should not do. US dictates it. Shame. Utter shame.

Today I read on Rediff again that those shitty Ozzy politicians have reverted back their decision and are now ready to sell fuel to India. Condition: Lame Ozzy good-for-nothing "nuclear inspectors" would inspect where the Uraniam sold by them is being utilized and ensure that its only in civilian nuclear installations and not military ones.

hahaha... Like we're gonna tell them out loud when we will siphon off the Uraniam to military installations!

I can't believe it that politicians actually believe that if a treaty is signed it will be followed religiously. Especially when it deals with nuclear stuff.

If Ozzy politicians can be such lamers Indian politicians can be even more lamer and siphon the cakes quickly to nuclear installations! hahaha...

Lame Ozzies. Shame Ozzies.

Good idea to control Environmental Pollution

2007-07-23T00:20:00.001+05:30

Just thought of a good idea to control environmental pollution.

The supermarkets are full with various types of fruit juices and concentrates. All of these mostly come in Plastic bottles. Instead of buying these Plastic bottle filled juices why not buy paper based packs which have fruit juices as well. Paper is bio-degradable where as Plastic takes 300 years to bio-degrade.

Save our mother earth.

Osho Thought

2007-06-22T22:25:00.000+05:30

Be life-affirmative. Life is synonymous with God.
You can drop the word God — life is God. Live with reverence, with great respect...gratitude. You have not earned the life, it has been a sheer gift from the beyond. Feel thankful and prayerful, and take as many bites of it as possible and chew well and digest well.

-- I love this guy. He is the only Idol I could ever see up to. The ONLY!

Top 22 worst named places in the world!

2007-05-31T07:57:00.000+05:30

22. Cockburn, Western Australia
Although this name is often pronounced "Coburn" by those who stand to lose from its awfulness, who actually reads that when they see this word? Oh, how it burns.

21. Twatt, Orkney, Shetland Islands, Scotland
The Shetland Islands, pronounced "Shitland Islands" if you have an accent like mine, make up a happy little area north of Scotland where it's too cold for trees to grow. I am related to approximately half the population of the Shetland Islands, share a last name with a quarter of them, and can probably trace my ancestry back to Twatt if I try hard enough. The pride!

20. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand
Locals call this hill in Hawke's Bay "Taumata" because... Well. Just because.

19. Muff, Ireland
We here at Drivl love puerile humour. They have a town called Muff. Har har har.

18. Looneyville, Texas, United States
Little Looneyville was named for storekeeper John Looney in the early 1870s. But who gives a shit. This is a hilarious name for a town in the state that brought us Dallas, the Bush Twins and Waco. How awkward must that be when you go to college? "Hey guys, my name's Sue and I'm from Looneyville!"

17. Titty Hill, Sussex, England
Falling squarely into the extensive Stupid Place Names From England category, Titty Hill is probably located just north of...

16. Thong, Kent, England
Which actually is south-east of...

15. Gravesend, Kent, England
Oh, come on, England. Graves End? What a nasty, depressing little name. You could have at least gone all the way with this one and called it Corpse Feet.

14. Wetwang, Yorkshire... yep! England again!
Okay, so I'll cut England some slack. It's an old country. You know, if the United States is Google, then England is IBM. Their country is older than fucking dirt. They can't be blamed for having names that sound funny in 2007. But this is kind of ridiculous. Wetwang? I'm surprised they don't have towns called Squishy Vagina or Infected Scrotum.

13. Spread Eagle, Wisconsin
If I were mayor of Spread Eagle, I'd be making diplomatic advances towards the city leaders over in Wetwang to form a Sister-City relationship. Or maybe more of a Platonic-Friends-City relationship. After that, we'd just take thing slow and see what happened.

12. Bald Knob, Arkansas, United States
Well, I guess it's better than Hairy Knob. I assume England already has that one covered.

11. Cockup, Cumbria, England
Cumbria is a county in the very north-west of England. What the backwoods of Alabama are to America is what Cumbria is to Britain. They talk funny up there. Thus, it isn't thoroughly surprising that they have a town called Cockup. What do you call someone from this place? A Cockupper? Cockupeleite? Cockuppian? Cockupican? I suppose it's mildly better than Wetwangger.

10. Whiskey Dick Mountain, Washington State, United States
As hard as America tries, it can't compete with Britain's high standards. This was a good effort, though. Well done, Washington.

9. Hookersville, West Virginia
Undoubtedly named before "hooker" meant "prostitute who picks men up on street corners," Hookersville combines two crimes of place-naming. One, a dirty sounding adjective (they couldn't have chosen "Pleasant"? "Sunny"? "Happy"?) And two, they added "ville" to the end of the town's name. Affixing "ville" to the end of a town's name is like dressing your silly little dog in a cardigan and letting him carry his leash around in his mouth. It just makes the poor animal look fucking stupid.

8. Hell, Michigan, United States
The people in this town at least seem to have a good sense of humour about their home's unfortunate name. Although, I'm sure there's some midwestern idiots in Hell who get all offended and defensive when the town shows up on lists like this. I'm looking forward to reading their insightful emails and comments.

7. Toad Suck, Arkansas, United States
So that's what they do down in the big AR.

6. Middelfart, Denmark
I guess it's not so funny to them, but how do we know that "Seattle" doesn't mean "Big Fat Stinking Turd" in Danish? That's right, we don't. And it probably does.

5. Horneytown, North Carolina, United States
Its proximity to Hookersville, West Virginia is no coincidence. I also assume that, like Hookersville, the naming of Horneytown took place before "horney" meant "aching for a hot piece of ass" with an extra "e". But I'm starting to wonder why, pride and tradition aside, the townspeople in these little places never saw it fit to change their homes' names? Do they enjoy being ridiculed by the entire English-speaking world?

4. Shitterton, Dorset, England
I wonder if they bleep out the first part of Shitterton's name if it's mentioned on TV in America?

3. Disappointment, Kentucky, United States
Le sigh. Never mind. You live in a small town in Kentucky. At least it was appropriately named.

2. Fucking, Austria
The idiots who live in Fucking, Austria had a vote in 2004 to determine whether or not they should change the town's name, and you know what they did? They voted against it, preferring instead to put up with international ridicule, numerous stolen road-signs and horrific Google results.

But the hands-down winner, again from New Zealand is:

1. Whakapapa
Why is this the worst place name in the world? In Maori, the native language of New Zealand, the "wh" sound is pronounced "f". Say it aloud in your office and see what happens.

Another fantastic usability innovation

2007-05-31T03:18:00.000+05:30

I don't know why but I've been stumbling upon amazing usability innovations lately. Here is another one. Every stair has been converted into a drawer as well.

This is fantastic use of space. Imagine. This will reduce the clutter for those extra cabinets to store all the bedsheets, shoes, stuff which you don't use regularly and what not.

Some Australian guy designed it and is selling it in Aus as well !

Fantastic innovation I must say.

Its summer and I can come late in office

2007-05-17T21:32:00.000+05:30

During the winter months when I come in the office I generally wear a hard leather jacket. I am one of those who is awake will 1-30 am in the night and just cant make it on time in the office the next day. When I come late, people are already there in the office and have removed and hung their cloaks on their seats. When I come in late, I am the only person with the jacket and hence its immediately clear to everybody that I've come late. Too Bad.

Summer comes and things change. We no longer need to wear those jackets. A simple shirt and pant is good enough as an office attire. So when I walk in late, folks generally end up thinking that I had gone for getting some water or may be I'm coming in from the canteen after having my breakfast. This gives an added boost to come late.

Wow. I love it.

Coolest idea I've seen in a while !

2007-05-16T02:55:00.000+05:30

I've pulled this from another blog I'm copy pasting it here.

Begin->

Sometimes I’m amazed at the creativity of some people who earn a good living filling needs that anyone could do. I was at a gathering today when I struck up a conversation with a man who described his job as a “commute helper.”

“OK, what exactly is a commute helper?” I asked

“I help people have a smooth and quick commute,” he replied.

“How do you do that?” I asked

“I sit in their car, ” he said with a smile.

This is what happened. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the commutes in certain sections are absolutely horrendous. This guy was sitting in a traffic jam one morning watching all the people in the carpool lane drive by while he was moving at snail’s pace. He decided that he needed to get someone else in his car so that he could get to work in a timely manner using the carpool lane, and at first thought that his only option was to start a carpool.

As he thought about it more, however, he thought that he (as in himself and his body) was actually a valuable commodity and he could sell himself and that is exactly what he did. He walked to the freeway entrance and held up a sign that said,

“Traffic is bad. Spend 2 hours or pay me $10 and get there in 20 minutes”

He said the first day he was picked up within 15 minutes. When he got dropped off, he walked to the other side, held up his sign and got paid to go back the other way too. On a typical day he makes 2 to 3 round trips during the morning commute rush hour and 3 - 5 round trips during the evening rush hour. If there is an accident and traffic is really slow, his price doubles. He clears $100 - $300 a day sitting in a car so others can get to work and home faster!

I just had to laugh when I heard his explanation and how brilliantly simple it was.

<- End

This is the most innovative idea to make a buck I've seen in some while. I generally blog stuff that I find interesting. This is one more.

The text has been pulled from

http://www.pfadvice.com/2006/06/21/creative-job-commute-helper

2007-05-11T10:54:00.000+05:30

You go on dreaming, imagining beautiful things for the coming days, the future. But in moments when danger is imminent, then suddenly you become aware that there may be no future, no tomorrow, that this is the only moment you have got.
So times of disaster are very revealing. They don´t bring anything new in the world; they simply make you aware of the world as it is. They wake you up. If you don´t understand this, you can go mad; if you understand this, you can become awakened.

I know none of the readers will understand it. But I do. And hence this post.

User revolt at Digg.com and after thoughts

2007-05-02T21:33:00.000+05:30

On May 1, 2007 there was a huge revolt by Digg.com users.

The reason: A story was posted by one of the users which detailed how a HD-DVD security key was cracked. The cracked key was also apart of the Title of the story.

Since Digg.com is favorite for Geeks (and mine too) this quickly came to notice of many users and started getting diggs by the loads. Now, when the HD-DVD company folks got a sniff of the fact that their DRM was cracked, they forwarded a Legal Cease & Desist notice to Digg.com to bring that story down with immediate effect. Fearing a legal lawsuit the Digg.com staff deleted the story without any reason given to the user who posted it.

With this all hell broke loose!

Till this day Digg.com prouded itself to be Democratic site where users decide everything. However, when it brought down this story (which in turn was posted by the user) the million odd users of Digg went berserk. They couldn't take the fact that the Digg staff considered a potential lawsuit threat more important than their freedom to post and digg the stories. As a backlash for the next 24 hours every story on Digg was a variation of the original deleted story and each of this story went ahead to get more than 10, 000 diggs each. This is what I call Badass!

This shows how pissed the users got. The Digg front page was quickly swamped with the HD-DVD stories and nothing else.

I as a big fan & a self confessed neo-Geek was following this saga with morbid fascination. This is the first time I've seen an online revolt at such a unprecedented scale.

This was nearly equivalent to bunch of Shiv-Sena goons storming the Pune electricity board and beating the hell out of electricity board officers for having done a crappy job of providing electricity to the city.(Yeah, I supported this act of Shiv-Sena ! And I'm proud of it)

The saga finally ended when Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) bowed down to peoples demand and resurrected the deleted story . In his blog post he finally agreed that Digg will fight a lawsuit if needed but will not succumb to MPAA copyright crap!

This saga one again strengthens my trust in Democratic society and power of the people.

Freedom has to be defended at any cost! Way to go Diggers!

What do you guys think of this ? So you support my view ? Please comment and let me know.

Pull the match out and its already lit !

2007-04-20T00:14:00.000+05:30

Innovation in what? Matchbox design. Yep, innovation is everywhere. Pramthya and Daddu (smokers) are going to love this.

Lucifer matches, a company producing matchboxes has designed a clever matchbox where a matchstick is already lit by the time you pull it out of the matchbox. No need to drag its tip across the rough surface to light it.

Check the picks and visit the link at

http://www.notcot.com/archives/2007/04/lucifer_matches.php

Fantastic example of aesthetic utilitarian art. I love this !

2007-04-17T03:19:00.000+05:30

Look at this pic. I discovered while reading BoingBoing. It absolutely startled me as to how uniquely it was designed. It's like a wall decoration and a fruit bowl. This is constructive imagination at its highest.

It took about 10 secs to get this. It's actually a fruit bowl with a hollow ring. Fruits are placed in the bowl all through the ring.

If you need to pick up one and eat you use the opening at the bottom.

If you need to refill it, you just add more fruits from the top.

Absolutely unique and a fantastic innovation !! I'm sold out on this one.

Its time to look at health seriously !!

2007-04-07T20:26:00.000+05:30

A long time friend of mine, Kartik Jayaraman has launched a great site called Desifitness.com. Kartik has been researching on Health and Nutrition since a few years now and Desifitness has hit the nail at the right spot at the right time primarily because it targets not only exercise and fitness but also the diet and nutrition of desis which is so much different from everyone else.

The life style of desis in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh etc (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desi, especially in foreign countries like US or UK can be fairly lethargic. Since things are situated pretty far away people end up traveling everywhere in car. Sometimes even a couple of minutes brisk walk is also a far cry. Moreover, work pressure adds increased stress. Less time for day to day activities like cooking means eating mostly outside (burgers , pizza, KFC etc).

All this collectively leads to complete neglect towards health. As a result most of the desi junta ends up having a big belly which later is hard to shed.

DesiFitness.com offers a forum where Desi's can discuss, ask and opine on different issues they face as far as health is concerned. I'm subscribed to the forum. It has some of the best health and nutrition experts on-board, who can be consulted easily.

Overall I highly recommend this site to Desi professionals no matter which part of the globe they are from.

Another gem from Osho

2007-03-29T00:24:00.000+05:30

Every now and then this Osho makes me realize that life is worth living and nothing is wrong in this world. In fact everything is right. All you need to do is stop compromising with life and everything will be right.

Here is another gem:

"There has never been a person like you before, there is not anybody else like you right now in the whole world, and there will never be anybody like you. Just see how much respect God has paid to you. You are a masterpiece — unrepeatable, incomparable, utterly unique. Even the hardest heart,
the rock-like heart, will start melting in gratitude"

My dear NRI

2007-03-13T21:52:00.000+05:30

My Dear NRI

You leave me speechless at times. Your concern for your homeland and patriotism gives me goose bumps. You are forever obsessed with anything and everything Indian – cricket, bollywood, kollywood, corrupt politicians, carnatic music, and everything else which one would associate with the word INDIA.

But somewhere in this love affair, you lose your objectivity. Your obsession for anything India gets transformed to a nit-picking campaign which you brilliantly blow up to ridiculous proportions. For example, if a kid gets lost in an Indian city even for a moment, for you that’s a sufficient enough evidence to conclude India is unsafe for children. Going by this logic, if an adult loses his way in an Indian city, I guess we should all conclude India is unsafe for adults too.

Every third post in your blog would be about the lack of discipline in Indian roads, the corrupt political system, the unscrupulous bureaucracy, the snail’s pace functioning of government departments etc. If only the rating agencies like Standard and Poor or Moody’s got a chance to read your blog, I guess India would be downgraded from ‘Sumaara Irukku’ to ‘Naasama Pochu’.

It is an irony that in this very nitpicking campaign, you betray the same Indian trait which you decry with all your heart among your resident brethren. I mean, you sit safely in a developed country and keep on gossiping about your underdeveloped motherland. How useful is that? Look at it in another way, you make a living in a foreign country and all but obsessed with your home country when you could do a lot to better your adopted country – typical Indian trait again.

Chinese Communism

2007-03-12T21:50:00.000+05:30

The Govt wants the land cleared for building some complex. The family living there won't budge. This is in Chongqing, central China.

For a complete read of the article read here

Sikh Park

2007-03-12T02:58:00.000+05:30

There is this Sardar who's started Sikh Park on the grounds of South Park. Check one of his riffs.

Do you think this is true?

2007-03-11T23:10:00.000+05:30

Do you think this is still the state of Asian culture?

Osho Thought

2007-03-11T11:19:00.000+05:30

Existence is abundant - millions and millions of flowers,
millions of birds, millions of animals — everything in abundance.
Nature is not ascetic, it is everywhere dancing — in the ocean, in the trees. It is everywhere singing — in the wind passing through the pine trees,
in the birds....
What is the need of millions of solar systems,
each solar system having millions of stars?
There seems to be no need,
except that abundance is the very nature of existence;
that richness is the very core; that existence does not believe in poverty

MH Bank embarking on some new stuff - really creditable

2007-02-28T02:32:00.000+05:30

Just read an article at esakal.com . The article is linked here.

Maharashtra Bank, a bank which caters to the banking needs of mostly rural and urban Maharashtra is embarking upon a new Solar Loan Policy where-in they are willing to give loans to people who are willing to switch to solar power equipments at affordable interest rates.

Maharashtra has had a electricity shortage from times unknown. As a backlash of this there have been many programs started where-in people are being encouraged to explore alternative modes of energy so that the dependence on the State Electricity Board reduces considerably.

This program is one such example. Although the program concentrates on the needs of the rural areas, the loans are nevertheless available in urban areas as well.

Anybody who really feels about the environment should really go and check the terms of this loan and make use of this offer.

Its not many a times that these run-of-the-mill banks do such new and innovative programs.
In fact hardly any bank does it at all !

Virgin Atlantic and bad customer service

2007-02-23T22:53:00.000+05:30

I am never going to fly Virgin Atlantic (called VA from now) ever again because of its utmost crappy customer service from top to bottom.

Till now I always thought that VA was in a better league than other airlines. My experience on Wednesday Feb 21st changed my opinion. Va flight 351 from Mumbai to London was canceled due to Technical Problems. Something went majorly wrong and they canceled it.

Fair enough, things go wrong, shit happens. But this is the time when airlines need to show their strength at customer service. And this is where they exactly failed, big time. 250 passengers were boarded on the flight. When the flight didn't take off within the first 1/2 hour people began asking questions. The captain announces that there is some problem and he will get back within 10 minutes with the answer.

His 10 minutes usually actually meant 1/2 an hour! He seriously had no sense of time. It wasn't until 3 hours that he finally heard from engineering that the plane had a serious snag and won't take off today.

Now starts the fun. People had come from far away areas like Pune, Ahemadabad and Nasik for this flight as these cities do not have a international airport. They were naturally curious as to what alternative arrangement will the airline do till the time a next flight is arranged.

The airline officials audaciously declared that the passengers either need to figure out their way to their relatives in Mumbai itself, or the ones who didn't have anybody in Mumbai need to figure out hotels in the city and the airline will reimburse the charges. Given this imagine that most of the passengers traveling to London were British tourists to India and had no idea of Mumbai city let alone starting to search hotels for themselves !

Among the passengers was a old lady who couldn't walk and needed a wheelchair. VA couldn't arrange for a wheelchair for more than 2 hours ! Poor lady had to sit on the airport floor for around 2 hours before a wheel chair was arranged.

During offloading of luggage several passengers had their luggage damaged as well. VA refused to acknowledge that.

After much complaining and pushing by almost all passengers VA officials finally agreed to hire a hotel consultant to assist passengers to find a hotel. They promised Rs 10,000 to each passenger for hotel & travel and other expenses per head. Unfortunately the consultant they hired found out that there were no rooms available for the 250 people in entire of Mumbai !! When, after a long search he did find some room the room costs were 17000 Rs a night. This meant that passengers needed to shell out 7000 Rs themselves or share the room with other passengers!

Imagine a city of more than 5 crore people having no rooms for even a single person! This move was seen as the biggest put off by passengers. Everybody was complaining about VA trying to sacrifice passenger comfort in an attempt to save money. At one point people were furious about all the mess up and were out fighting with VA staff.

Passengers who were traveling to the US through a connection from London were then later offered a alternative Delta flight which was leaving at 1-10 am that day. Those who wanted to report to work the next day (like me) were happy to get on board that flight. Others chose to stay in the hotel and get on the next VA flight the next day.

Overall after this horrible mismanagement at VA in times when their customer service is really at test I will try avoiding the airlines completely. No more foreign airlines from now. I am going to stick to pretty good Air India and Jet airways from now. They at least arrange for wheelchairs immediately!

Inkless Printer

2007-02-23T22:03:00.000+05:30

This story caught my attention since I am a big environmental enthusiast :-). Xerox, a $15 billion company is embarking on a technology which will give us an inkless printer which can write on a paper over and over again around 50 times.

The fantastic article is "Inkless Printer"

I think within around next 50 years we will nail down the basic environment issues around oil combustion and paper usage completely with the way technology is moving.

Finally an early stage startup fund ! India's desperate need is finally addressed

2007-01-23T22:56:00.000+05:30

Just read an article here

Its heartening to hear that India is finally being considered as a serious player in venture capital industry. Till now like of Shaadi.com, Sulekha.com and several others have raised some cool venture capital from several valley based firms.

However, all of these ventures were late stage funded. All this time there was a general fear psychosis from venture capital industries for early stage investments in Indian companies for some unknown reason.

Google has started a seedfund as the article mentions which is going to be a great help for folks with big ideas but no money and probably little experience in execution.

Now that Google has done it others will simply cave in and follow.

Osho thought

2007-01-01T22:49:00.000+05:30

Nothing is good, nothing is bad. When this dawns in your consciousness, suddenly you are together, all fragments have disappeared into one unity. You are crystallized, you are centered.

This is one of the greatest contributions of Eastern consciousness to the world.

-- Osho Rajneesh

The Kohinoor row

2006-12-29T23:17:00.000+05:30

Suddenly out of the blue we've waged a war for the return of the Kohinoor. What were we doing all this time ? Sleeping? Why didn't it bother us 50 years ago when we got Independence?

This is what i hate about our entire Indian civilization. Living in the past. Identifying heavily with the past. Whats wrong if we don't have that hira? Do we loose anything ? Or Do we gain anything?

Heritage. Crap! When we slowly and gradually lost independence in the 1700's and 1800's where was our pride and heritage? Why the fuck did we fight against each other and let the British take advantage of it ? Why didn't we protect our Heritage and sovereignty that time?

Lets get rid of the cloud of our past and try to do things which don't let us feel ashamed of us again and again. We've had a bad recent past and we've gotten out of it. Screw the Kohinoor. We don't want it. If Pakistan has claims upon it, let them get it. We've got too much to worry about. We got to get rid of poverty and march ahead in our quest of becoming a prosperous superpower. Fuck the Kohinoor. We don't need it.

www.goolti.com - Review Desi Consultancy firms in the US/India

2006-12-26T21:43:00.000+05:30

I've embarked on another small venture. http://www.goolti.com. This one is a simple forum where people can share their experiences of working with Desi consultancy firms in the US.

There is a lot of dirtiness which goes on in the Consultancy companies run by Desi's out here in US.
1) Some don't give H1B original papers to their employees.
2) Some in the fear that the employees will leave the firm immediately make them sign a contract.
3) Some hold up some part of their salary so that they don't leave immediately.
4) Some have horrible experiences since they are on bench and their employers don't get them a contract soon.

The list can go on and on. Specifically, students who switch from their F1 visa status to H1B status are special targets to harass since they are new to the game and can be exploited.

www.goolti.com is a site where people who have gone through such good/bad experiences can voice their opinions so that other people benefit from it. Its a simple user forum where you can write a review for others to be viewed and commented on.

Please note that the users can also put up 'good' reviews about their consultants.

I hope this finally becomes a mode to force these consultancy companies to play a fair game.

2006-11-22T11:08:00.000+05:30

You may be the last generation who has the possibility to rebel.
And if you don´t rebel, there may be no more chances: humanity can be reduced to a robot-like existence. So rebel while the time is still there!

--Osho Rajneesh

How was the Universe created?

2006-10-30T23:11:00.000+05:30

I've reached new levels today in understanding, How the universe was created. The question which is haunting the mankind for centuries in the past and which is going to haunt the mankind for all the time to come has finally been solved by good old me!

So the thing is, the theory that somebody created this universe is absurd as far as my mind can think of. Because, it leaves a circular question open. If X created the universe then who created X? And this question can go on and on and on. So, I refute creationary theories completely and won't bother about them here.

Next, assume that what ever you see as created never really existed. The earth, the stars, the planets, the galaxies and the nebula's, everything. Assume for a while that all that your mind understands as 'creation' just disappears. So what is left now? Total darkness and emptyness, right?

What is left? Nothing. Right? Now what is this Nothing? As far as our minds can perceive 'Nothing' its just absence of 'everything'. If everything disappears, what is left is deep dark space. Fathomless emptyness.

Now, max you can conclude is, out of this emptyness our universe was created. How? Don't bother about that. We will focus our quest to the base. The root, rather than the fruit. Once the root is sorted out, the fruit can be reached.

Next. Can anybody create this emptyness? Absence of everything is presence of this deep dark space. Now 'Nothingness' does not need creation. I mean c'mon its nothingness after all. How can you create nothingness. At least I'm convinced on the fact that 'Nothingness' needs no creation and hence bothering about where it came from and what is it there for is crap and waste of your time.

So, however far the physicists reach in concluding the birth of the universe a final explanation with proofs cannot be ever available.

Hence today, in a final revelation, the final light has dawned and I conclude that this existence never began in the first place and hence will never end. It never was created and hence will never be destroyed.

Hope this explanation made some sense. At least it makes sense to me.

Entrpreneurship

2006-10-24T09:50:00.000+05:30

Full marks to this guy ...

God and Belief

2006-09-26T08:58:00.000+05:30

The believer is not a seeker. The believer does not want to seek, that´s why he believes. The believer wants to avoid seeking, that´s why he believes. The believer wants to be delivered, saved, he needs a savior. He is always in search of a messiah — somebody who can eat for him, chew for him, digest for him. But if I eat, your hunger is not going to be satisfied. Nobody can save you except yourself.

-- Osho Rajneesh

2006-09-25T10:16:00.000+05:30

Statistically Insightful

Pope and the Muslims

2006-09-19T23:40:00.000+05:30

Recently Pope made a comment while reading a text at some place which said that Mohammed had brought the biggest evil on the world.

This is disgusting. I think all Christians should give up Christianity on moral grounds. If the highest authority of your religion makes such ignorant comments it shows the narrow-mindedness of your religion and its core values. Orthodox Christians suck bigtime.

On the other hand, once again the Muslims showed to the world that they are still living in the 11th Century. Their angry reaction to the whole incident was overrated. They could have demanded an apology without burning down Churches and Chapels in the middle east.

If pope turns out to be an asshole why should Muslims respond to it in an assholish manner ?

I'm again reminded and convinced that Religion & God has nothing to do with Human life. Both the concepts are biggest conspiracy theories of all times.

Drop Religion and concept of God from your mind. Both do not exist.

Netvibes

2006-09-15T23:16:00.000+05:30

I discovered this cool site www.netvibes.com.

Its a RSS feed aggregator and offers other functionalities such as reading mails through RSS and certain other features like Meebo widgets etc.

It's one of the coolest sites I've seen lately. Its time to say good bye to visiting various sites to read content posted out there. NetVibes is a one stop shop to read all your content, blogs, pics and what not.

Several other sites have started RSS feed reader facilities. Off lately Yahoo is one I've noticed who've jumped into this game.

This site is on my high recommendation list.

Bad experience with DoubleTree suites

2006-08-18T20:05:00.001+05:30

I am explicitly taking out some time out of my busy schedule today to write this post.

I came to New Jersey for the first time as a consquence of a new job. Until I found an apartment I chose to live in DoubleTree suites & Hotels (Newport branch) which is a part of the Hilton Hotels umbrella.

My experience with DoubleTree was really really bad and I was absolutely appalled by the kind of customer service they offer.

Basic things like clean rooms, with all the needed utilities and amneties were all perfect. There was no problem with that.

The ugly part is here.

Avis car rentals has an office right in the lobby of the same hotel. I didn't really know this and called the front desk about renting cars. The front desk dosen't really want to talk straight. It dosent understand what the hell customer service means.
The lady who picked up my call answers in an irritated tone saying that 'Sir, why don't you call the Avis rentals rather than asking me?'. It seemed like by telling me this she was doing me a huge favour for which I'd owe her one.

Finally gives me the phone number for Avis rentals which dosent work! I had to go on the Avis website and get thier number.

This is bad service. Real bad service.

Here is another one.

Internet access in DoubleTree suites is not Wireless. Its Wireless only in Public areas.

Crap!

In which age are they living? 1760's?

Tell me which hotel today dosent have a wireless connectivity in rooms?

To add to that, the wireless connectivity is available for 9.95$ per day. This is a too expensive. No value for money ! Total crap!

I had lived in Extended Stay hotels in the past and they offer wireless connectivity in every room for 4.95$ for the entire stay. Thats what I call value for money. These guys (Extended Stay) make profit too but they don't rip the customer off for making the profit. They do ethical business.

When you check-in to DoubleTree they offer you Choclate Chip cookies as a warm welcome. This is a total gimmick! They have no Idea of good customer service at all. The warmness in the customer service dissappears as soon as you get into your room.

With all these problems I'd advise anybody NOT to choose DoubleTree suites for your stay if you want that stay to be comfortable. There are a million other hotels and you shud rather choose those.

Finally, out of rat hole of Cognizant

2006-08-15T00:33:00.000+05:30

Its had been on my mind for around 2 years. I tried my best to get out of it in London. But out there, to get a job on work permit was just too difficult. I had only one choice. Get to US and get rid of CTS. And thats what I did.

I came to Houston in Feb. Wasted a month since my passport was confiscated and Visa extension was waited. After that next 4 months I was only sticking to CTS to get valid paychecks which are needed for H1B transfers. I got them and resigned.

The market out here in US so HOT that as soon as I placed my resume on Monster, I started getting more than at least 5 calls a day. I caught a consultant and he started marketing my resume. I interviewed pretty heavily. I cleared practically all the interviews I gave except one. I got selected in UBS for NY and switched.

The sorry feeling of a underpaid and an overworked individual trapped in a jail is gone for good.

Another lesson in life, Having definitive focus helps move things quickly.

I know people from CTS here in US who have stuck to the company from last 2 and more years being on an H1. I switched almost immediately after arriving in US.

Another lesson learnt for me in life, Do things when time is ripe otherwise one rots.

I am in NYC now. Life is better.

Clarification about the Aryan migration, once again

2006-07-29T15:05:00.000+05:30

These set of links again are a research into the fact that Aryans never migrated into India. It was the other way round. This research was done by an independant researcher David Frawley.

Myth About Aryan Invasion

Update on Aryan Invasion Theory

2006-07-23T23:16:00.000+05:30

This is an excellent collection of articles I came across which eradicates the myth that Aryans migrated from Europe.

They were natively from the Indian heartland itself.

Click here for the articles

Islamist fundamentalism

2006-07-20T07:54:00.000+05:30

These days I've suddenly gained interest in Islam. A religion which has desperately gone wrong.

I seriously want to know what makes these fools think that the world should be exactly same as it was in 300BC when Mohd was around.

Some of the more critical blogs I've recently read are :

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com

I like them. They talk reality.

Cool Poem

2006-06-27T07:47:00.000+05:30

THE SUPREME REALITY–A Dialogue between He and They
He asked – Who is God ?
They said – God is the Supreme Reality.
A precisely vague reply !

He asked – Where is God ?
They said – He is everywhere.
Where ? Everywhere ! but where ?

He asked – Have you seen Him ?
They said – Well, no ! but we’ll meet him in heaven .
Oh Heavens ! Didn’t they just say God was everywhere !

He asked – You have proof of God ?
They said – God is an experience .
Experience the experience !
Surely, there must be better proof that God exists !

He scorned with a smile and said –
You know not who God is .
You know not where God is .
You have not the proof of his existence.
Why then should I believe in God ?

Vexed, they turned red-hot as iron,
they turned to leave.
They mumbled , “ Let him go to dogs !”

He cried out –
You clogged brains !
you do not realize,
that you have created God .
Mankind has created God !
Created him of necessity !
A necessity for your psyche ,
For, you weak-minded souls ,
need a pillar to give you solace,
to allay your fears ,disturbances, worries…
Admit it or not – Originally man created God,
then God created man !
Now, that’s the Supreme Reality !

They mocked at him, they left .
They stigmatized him as an agnostic.
Was he not only a free thinker !

SUSHMA NAGARAJ

Where the Hell is Matt?

2006-06-25T05:19:00.000+05:30

This is a cool video I found at YouTube.com. Check it out.

Beware of the Telugu guys

2006-05-26T00:38:00.000+05:30

Its surprising that Telugu people have practically no noise back home in India.

I mean living in Pune and Mumbai which are pretty cosmopolitan places you meet a lot of South Indian guys and learn about thier culture.

Surprisingly the guys you meet generally happen to be from Karnataka, Tamil nadu or Kerala. There are very few Telugu guys setteled there, I guess. You don't get to meet them very often nor hear any big news coming out of Andhra regularly.

However, come to U.S. and all you hear about is Telugu guys. They are here. They are there. They are Everywhere. I can take you to apartment complexes where you'll feel you've arrived to Hyderabad! Man, they have a mini-Andhra established in this country.

Houston, the place where I am living currently, has so many Telugu guys settled that its hard to believe that therez anybody left in Andhra anymore!

Now, the major business these guys run is body shopping consultancy firms where they sponsor H1B visas for aspiring guys in India and get them onboard to U.S. Believe me, if you ask some of the professionals that have worked with them, you'll know what hatred is. The spite they have for these people is just amazing!

Practically everybody I meet till now gives me the first advise that, come what may, don't work with a consultancy which is run by Telugu guys. It's a hell out there.

Why?

Desigiri.

Working with a Telugu consultant means a lot of hassle and haggling :

(1) You are pretty much sure that they'll fleece you with the salary they promise and the salary you actually get when your paycheck arrives.

(2) My roomie, Ranjith works with one such consultancy and says that his firm holds his 15 days worth of salary to ensure that he dosen't abruptly leave the consultancy and run away. They're just sure that every candidate who works with them is sure looking for jobs at other places and hence will run away soon.

(3) You never know whether you'll get a salary on time. You'll definitely get it. But not timely. Sometimes 15 days late and otherwise 2 months late.

(4) Some promise you that they'll immediately process your green card but later (once you've already joined) they'll tell you that you'll have to pay the green card processing fees from your pocket! You were never told that when you were about to join!

This is just some of the facts I've heard. Imagine what this blog post would read like if I'd been working for one of such firms. Just talking with people makes me doubt these guys. Imagine, what'll I write if I work for such a firm!

Moral of the story?

BEWARE of the Telugu firm in America! He might just fleece you off your money and peace of mind!!

Hey, but not everybody is bad?

Therez gotta be someone firms who're good. I mean c'mon this world has more good people than bad. Right?

So, I can't really go for what I hear from other people. That's just gossip.

Wait till I find out the reality about these allegations for real and I'll change my view.

If there are any Telugu guys reading this, please don't get offended. I mean c'mon this is just a sorry ass blogpost by a sorry ass guy who lives in Houston. Who the hell is he to comment on Telugu firms !! Huh???

Quota - My thoughts

2006-05-19T22:39:00.000+05:30

India is burning right now with great outrage over the OBC quota issue.

Firstly, lets face it. We, the upper castes (Note:I don't care a fuckin' shit of my Brahminism) have tortured the lower castes for more than 5000 years of history.

Now we expect that the lower castes should forget about it and live in harmony with everyone. Frankly, Does 5000 years of torture compare to 56 years of reservation?

These guys will always have resentment towards upper castes who tortured their ancestors on the name of 'god' and 'religion'.

Won't they be hating us for making them poor, giving them apathy, not providing them education. The upper castes had convinced the lower castes that their lives were useless and even God hates them and hence they were born in the caste they were.

All these wrong doings? And you want to end it in 56 years with granting of equal rights?

How can we expect that they won't get back at us? Why do we expect this anyway. Its just natures cycle of 'what goes around come around'. This has to happen. Let it happen. I am not opposing it. Even being a Brahmin I'm not opposing it.

However, I have a concern and a request.

India has just started gaining ground on the world frontier as a knowledge capitol and a economic powerhouse. The world's next wave of growth is only going to be fueled by India and China. No other country has any potential to do that.

With increasing wealth and prosperity India is definitely poised to become a world superpower. It took us 56 years to realise that free market economy and higher education can take us on the world map of rich and powerful nations.

Lets not break this positive run with dragging issues like casteism.

We need to come up with a Game Plan which can save the interests of the lower castes and still let us March forward with economic expansion. All I want the policitcians to do is come up with a win-win game plan which dosent harm the country and its people.

If you think its not possible to come up with such a plan. Here's one off the top of my head.

Convert everybody into Brahmins

Don't leave no lower castes in the population at all. Once everybody becomes a brahmin, this caste issue will dissappear.

Reservations should be everywhere. Not just in Govt and Education. Even in private companies

If Idea No 1 dosen't work then this is No 2.

There is nothing wrong in having reservations in private companies. We just need to make sure that only certain types of companies can be gives rights to do so.
For e.g. Only co's having huge revenue in a certain range can offer reservations in thier positions. Also, reservation hiring should be only on the lower rankings of the organizations and not on Managerial or critical positions.

Everybody comes into the organization on a lower level and has to figure out his own way to rise the ladder. This should apply to reservation hiries as well.

May be more thinking on such topics could bring in more agreeable ideas which will better suit both the lower and upper castes.

I'll be writing more on this topic in coming times as I think I might come out with some more good ideas to end this issue on a more agreeable front.

This is why I love this guy !

2006-05-14T13:21:00.000+05:30

People have judged you;
you have accepted their idea without any scrutiny.
And you are suffering from all kinds of people's judgments,
and you are throwing those judgments on other people.
And this game has become out of proportion.
The whole humanity is suffering from it.
If you want to get out of it, the first thing is:
Don't judge yourself.

--Osho Rajneesh.

final conclusion about God

2006-05-13T03:12:00.000+05:30

Ok, I'm finally convinced that there is no god. It just can't be. Most of my convincing comes from the Osho books + recordings + a lot of thinking of my own.

Well, you need someone to nudge you to think outside the frame of what you generally think. Till today my view towards the world was God, even if it exists dooesn't play a fair game. Right from problems of poverty to wars to petty thefts can be solved by God within minutes. Since they remain unsolved, I always had a doubtful view towards the concept of god. I could never believe in god just because a billion people around believe in it.

Imagine it logically, No one has seen god, God itself hasn't ever shown itself.
Whats there to be afraid of showing yourself if you know you are God.

what will happen if you do?

If God shows itself, people will be convinced that he is there and will probably stop all the wars, politics, poverty etc etc coz' they know they've someone to account all that to. So, if God shows himself there's more Good to happen than Bad.

Since God didn't show himself from last 10000 years of man's conscious history whats the guareentee that he will show himself in the rest of the time to come?

So there is no point in accepting the fact that God exists.

Life is open ended. We don't know certain things as to how they work. Our consciousness is constantly developing and dsiscovering new boundaries which we never discovered before. So this process, as time goes by, will definitely let us to the ultimate reality someday. Even if it dosen't , it won't matter. Things will remain as they are.

So as Osho says, Don't bother, meditate, rejoice , drink and enjoy. Life needs abundance of everything..poverty of anything was never life's way to see things.

Hope the reader understands what I'm trying to get at.

Pramthya & Bhavna

2006-05-06T04:28:00.000+05:30

My long time pal Pramthya and long time gal Bhavna have been engaged.

Pramthya sends me a email with a pic with title surprise at 1-15 am in the night and says on yahoo messenger that I'm engaged!

This really was a surprise to me. I for one always considered that Pramthya was the least interested in marrying among all of us so he would climb the gallows pole the last.

He proved me wrong.

However, I am extremeley happy & excited for both of them and wish them the best in future. I hope I make it to his marriage.

I'm sad that I couldn't make it to Dada's marriage. So I hope that I make it to Pramthya & Bhavna's at least.

Is it going to be Pramthya Malve or Bhavna Pattan ?

If Pramthya's reading this. I'm sure the male ego is on fire right now! :-D

hahahahah..........

Learnings from a venture

2006-04-17T21:49:00.000+05:30

When you launch a venture you need to first have a sure plan of marketing the venture. Developing and hosting lakhpatipage.com wasn't a big deal at all. But the biggest deal I'm having at the moment is reaching the people. I've managed 3000 hits withing a month. But now I'm at a loss as to how will I continue this upturn.

There seems to be no other alternative than creating banners and advertising them on other high traffic websites. If I get into this I know that I'm going to get into that dirty game of attracting traffic on to my site. And trust me, its a full time job. and its dirty coz' only websites with practically NO business models get into this game.

Well, ok lakhpatipage.com dosent really have a great biz model. But hey it's just my first venture. Gimme some room to breathe!

No, I'm not going to play the game of attracting traffic game. I'd rather concentrate on other bigger ideas brewing in my head right now.

My first venture

2006-03-31T03:20:00.000+05:30

As you already know. My only focused thought in life is to start a profitable venture in technology. About everything else in life I'm confused.

Taking the first toddler step towards fulfilling this goal I launched lakhpatipage.com.

This is a pixel advertising site ment for Indian advertisers. I am selling pixel space for cheap here. Thats the only USP of my site. Rest all is a simple copied concpt from milliondollarhomepage.

I dont need to describe the milliondollarhomepage venture since you will find millions of article on it if you google.

Do spread the word about this site if you happen to read it. I need to get some traffic on it. :)

So here goes my first venture. Let's see what I learn from it.

From Confusion to Clarity

2006-02-28T12:33:00.000+05:30

Today I've finally made a definitive decision over the biggest confusion a software professional in India faces.

I've met 100's of guys in London and now Houston who are staying onsite from years together. They came as singles and are now married (some of them with kids too). They'd love to go to India and settle down but they give me this reason and stick around endlessly.

There is more opportunity in the US. Also, going back to India, they won't earn as much money. So stick around.

Now, for those who think "It'll be great living in US", here is a real life eyewitness state of Indian people in US.

You can't really pull out the culture out of the people. So, Tamilians would stick with there jaat bhais and so would Kerelaites. In reality, all South Indians live a completely secluded life in the US. They form a mini-TN or mini-Kerala for themselves out here and are completely happy with it. They don't interact with anybody they don't go out very often. They don't wanna discover anything. Their life is a misery which only they understand.

As for the rest of the Indians, they mix up but, that mix up is limited to only Indians. They won't mix up with any of the natives. I've yet to meet a Indian guy from my last 2 years of experience in London and Houston who had really 'pally' English or American friends.

The only interaction with natives is on a office lunch , or a special party from the office like Christmas. Some of them, to show thier affections to thier bosses call them on dinner at home.

Also out of my 1.5 years of experience in London I might have spotted atmost 2wice or thrice some "British Indians" hanging around with native junta. Indians abroad have a community of thier own and they only limit themselves to that. Yes, I am also talking about 90% "British Indians" too.

So, "I won't earn as much money in India", what could this mean? When I think of myself saying this, the only thought that creeps into my mind is, I'm afraid of going back and making big on my own back in my own country. There is a fear in the mind, that I will need to work long hours, I will need to get into petty politics and after that what will I get? just a promotion? Instead of that I rather stay in US or UK so that I make more money.

Life for Indians in US as far as I can see is, " Something good will happen tomorrow. So let's wait and see. If it dosen't happen at least we'll have more money!"

I'm now convinced after thinking this through over and over that this is pure escapism. I'm no longer afraid of making it big in my own country. Only if I need fast cash will I ever travel abroad. And I will never settle abroad. It's not my piece of cake!

This is the confusion I've solved.

Free but Caged!!

2006-02-28T12:14:00.000+05:30

I will regret the time from Feb 7th 2006 to March 7th 2006 of my life.

I have this complete month off. No work. But, I am still trapped. Its like a caged holiday. I cannot go anywhere coz' the plane tickets are very expensive, I can't drive since I don't have a SSN card, and to top that I need to search an apartment too!

Mexico is 3 hrs away to drive, but I don't have my passport.

Kapil lives in Dallas but the Greyhound takes 15 hours to reach there. And by car you get there in 3. Car? No, I dont have a licence.

SFO where a couple of my friends live is again 4 hrs by flight. And flight tickets at the 11th hour are too expensive.

I am trapped. This again proves that God does not exist. Coz' if he did, small inconvieniences like this could easily be avoided by some miraculous magic.

So here I am sitting in my hotel room like a sad ass and writing this piece of blog. I don't even know whether it will make sense to the reader.

Total inactivity is dangerous. Since you are bored to death you find new ways of passing time. For e.g. eating. Yes, I feel like eating every 1/2 an hour. I don't know why. First entire week I gave in to the cravings. However, considering the fact that I am already around 10 kg overweight I had to pull the strings. The only way I could avoid this was by only turning to liquid rather than solids!

I bought around 20 packets of soups from a Indain store here. Knorr soup. And everytime I feel the craving for eating something. I gulp down an entire cup of soup.

This is the wisest thing I could do since I couldnt get my cravings under control.

So what can i say,
An empty mind is a devils restaurant ?

Houston, Texas

2006-02-16T02:04:00.000+05:30

Quit London, have reached Houston.

First couple of weeks are going to be hard since I'm gonna have to wait for my passport to be with me. Only then, can I move out into an apartment, have a licence, a car rental etc.

When you come to US, you realise their need for Oil. Here , in texas, people drive pick-up trucks, which can house at least 8 people , alone. Such vehicles give a mileage of 5-10 miles per gallon. Now you know why innocent Iraqis are being killed.

To add to that they have deliberately made nearly no public transport. Cities like Chicago,NY etc have a good interconnected public transport system, but the rest of the US drives. And for that it needs OIL. This was one of the most noticeable facts after I came here.

However, they are themselves realising the danger of being over dependant on OIL for a long time. You can clearly see that practically all American car manufacturing companies are rolling out prototype models with Alternative fuels.

Toyota has launched Toyota Prius Hybrid, which runs on a combination of electric powe r and normal fuel. Chevrolet has launched over a million vehicles which run on a combination of E85 Ethanol (which is manufactured from 'corn') and normal gasoline.
This is what excites me. This is what I call maintaing the edge, come what may.

On relative comparison, Mani Shankar Aiyer (for those who don't know, he is the Petroleum minister of India) is vooing the Iranian and Pakistani governments for allowing a Oil pipeline into India. While this step is completely welcome, the ministry needs to put in billions of rupees in alternative fuel. Coz' if we get ahead in the race for gaining our upper hand on alternative fuel vehicles, we can actually realise our dream of India becoming a super power 50 year quicker than current estimates.

I wish I was in the Government.

Might have lost crores of Rupees

2006-01-24T01:00:00.000+05:30

I had an idea where-in we would start a company which manufactures electronic books. These are books which provide you the exact comfort as your good old books but are electronic. I and Sandy Yadav (whose unfortunately good for nothing. Pun Intended) did quite a lot of research on it in 2004. We actually went hunting for technocrats who might assist us in developing this technology. I was pretty sure that this was a billion dollar idea. In fact, I'm still sure of that.

The idea failed. We never reached anywhere.

Now, in 2006, Sony has launched the first version of its e-book. Read it here.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/29/sony-to-announce-us-e-book-reader

Imagine if I had started off manufacturing these. I could have been a millionaire man!

But i lost it. :(

An Idea can get u xtra 3K a month!

2006-01-16T23:30:00.000+05:30

I'm a guy whose got new ideas. I keep getting them and they keep coming in. Here is another one.

I've invested in a couple of mutual funds which are giving average returns. The returns are around 3K in a timespan of 6 months. The principal invested in each of the mutual fund is 10K.

Now dig this.

What if I keep investing 10K every month in a new mutual fund or as an SIP in each of the already invested mutual funds? I only need to take care that I dont invest in some really bad non-performing mutual funds.

There is a plethora of new MF's which keep listing all the time. I just need to pick up the more well known fund houses and keep investing in them.

Lets do a bit of maths:

10K * 12 (investing each month of the year) = 1 lac 20K

This is nothing when you compare to my stock investments which were 2 lacs once.

Even if each fund gives me 4K a month, it will be an extra income. :-)

See, I told you I get bright ideas for earning more money.

Alright then, I'm off to study some good performing mutual funds.

Boredoom setting in

2006-01-14T01:23:00.000+05:30

End of first week in London and the same old boredoom is setting in. Last year every friday me and the roomies used to get to Central London and drink our way through the night. However, I dont like it anymore. Same old guys (the roomies). One of the guys is cool and the other is currently pursuing MBA. He is in a different state of mind. We keep talking the same old things. I guess today I will stay at home. Won't accompany them anywhere.

Morever, there is no point ogling at the english chicks which we used to do, I hate it. I'm thinking of getting a chick of my own ;-). I'm on a major hunt this time. God knows what was I doing last year. Should have started doing it then.

Depression man .. manic depression. I can make a good song right now if I was a musician. Emotions are running high.

Reached London

2006-01-11T22:36:00.000+05:30

Well, whenever I try to see my blog I dont see the last 2 updates of mine on it. I can see all the rest. Looks like this blogger.com software is dodgy. Will give it a week. If it dosen't get sorted out I think I will switch to rediff. That's pretty good I heard.

So, the saga has gone 7000 miles apart now. I've reached London. There are quite a few things to talk about now.

Firstly, I might be included into a new project called COMS for which I might have to get to Houston. There are hurdles to it but. As you know life aint that simple.
Some big time manager there is being asked to influence my onsite manager here to get me out of this project and include me into that. Its kinda long shot but lets see how it goes. Till now everything is being going smooth.

So now my quitting plan needs to be rethought. It might be like this. I go to US on an H1. I see that I am getting a better Salary outside so I switch.

In case going to US fails things are as they are, meaning, quit here in UK and get a newer job. Now again, that has strings attached. Work permit issues and all that Jazz!

Time to quit

2005-12-14T15:05:00.000+05:30

The time has come to say bye-bye to CTS. I'm completely bored to death in this company. The project I'm in has no value addition to my career. Moreover, after going to London now I will have to work on ulrta crap technologies like Winrunner. I will be a part of regression testing. My great development skills wasted end to end :-).

The way I'm planning for it is like this. 8th Jan I am back to London. Before that I'm gonna prepare myself for a rock solid technical Java interview. As soon as I land in UK I'm gonna frantically search for a job.

In UK, when you are on a work permit, switching jobs is not as easy as its in the US. You need to find a company which is desperate enough to take you in and sponsor your work permit transfer. Finding such companies is difficult. However , I'm gonna try really hard this time. Hope it will work out.

Now, If this dosen't work out I'm NOT going to stick around. I'm coming back and switching the companies here in India itself. Fuck UK. I don't care a shit about the money there.

One thing which I have realised is, I can't see myself as a Senoir Associate or a APM or a Manager in this company. I constantly have this incling that I'm built for starting up on my own. Now, how I'm going to do that I know not, but till the time I can figure that out I can at least work in better company, meet different people, if not anything at least enjoy life.

So the winds of change have arrived and I'm flowing with them. This is the first time I've felt completely confident about quitting and I might as well do that.

The sad part.

I will have to format a parting mail when I resign and I'm really bad at writing senti stuff.

Meetro

2005-12-02T18:47:00.000+05:30

Today I checked out this fantastic service called www.meetro.com.

The idea is to get people are in physical vicinity of each other to meet over IM. All major IM's are supported.

Imagine what this can do?

I wanna go home at 7 pm but the company bus is at 7-30pm. If entire IT park in Pune is on Meetro, I can search for all the Meetro'ers who are in 1/4 Km away from me. I can just post them that "I need a lift". This would save such a hell of my time.

There could be millions of other possibilities like my Mom instructing the Kiranawala to fetch milk over the internet !

Increased interest in politics!

2005-11-29T14:33:00.000+05:30

Recently I've been increasinlgy following Indian Politics for some unknown freaking reason. 2 months before, I wouldn't even care a shit about what Laloo and Nitish are upto!

Back home in MH Shiv Sena's battle to integrate itself after Raj gave kalti is also getting interesting. The fall of Shiv Sena is good for MH coz' there are better leaders out there like Sharad Pawar et al.

Another startling fact I'm rising upto is, I'm having this faint inclination towards getting into politics myself ! Yup, totally absurd I know. Seedha Saadha guy like me will be eaten alive among those wolves. But then someone needs to come out to make the difference. What do you think? Will you vote for me? :-)

Cycle Keys - Found them!!

2005-10-27T13:02:00.000+05:30

My frantic search yesterday night bought me success.
The keys were in one of my shorts! They fell down into the drum of our washing machine.
Our bai found it when she was picking out clothes from the washing machine !!!

Phew!! I didn't have to vreak the lock after all.

Lost my bi-cycle keys!

2005-10-26T15:03:00.000+05:30

If you've been following my earlier posts you must be aware that I am now an avid cycler. I do most of the houseold chores on cycle.

Recently, I've lost my cycle keys and I've tried to hunt around the entire house with vain :-( . Its tyres have lost all the air and I'm suspecting a puncture. If I don't get the keys by this weekend I will need to break open the lock by banging it with a stone !! I hope I don't break any other parts of that thing.

Sad, but true.

SoonR - A neat startup

2005-10-26T14:33:00.000+05:30

www.SoonR.com is a startup aimed at providing a service wherein you can browse your desktop computer from your very own mobile phone.

I got curious and wanted to know how it works. The plan is simple and neat. I like their technology.

You create an account with www.SoonR.com. On your desktop PC you need to install a SoonR agent software. The desktop needs to have internet connectivity.

On the end user side , all you do is point your mobile phone browser to www.soonr.com, enter your SoonR accounts user name and passwd and browse your desktop!!

If you want to share some files with your friends (mobile or PC) you can do so too!!

I like this man. I really like this! Innovation man Innovation !!

Tata infotech & TCS merging

2005-10-17T13:09:00.000+05:30

Tata infotech and TCS are merging. The Board of Directors of both the companies have given the go ahead. The companies are now waiting to get the permission of the merger from their shareholders.

After the merger, 2 shares of Tata Infotech will be equal to 1 share of TCS.

If you have Tata Infotech stock, believe me you are in luck since TCS stock is a great performer.Retain it.

Continuing to save our environment

2005-10-17T12:56:00.000+05:30

By this time I've become paranoid to make an effort to save the environment. I've also taken some steps for it. No. I am not going to give you theory. This is me, who leads with practise ;-)

1) I've started keeping a jute bag in the dicky of my car. Whenever we buy anything on the way, I always avoid taking plastic bags. I make use of my jute bag.

Well, let me admit I haven't been 100% successful in this endaveour of mine. But I've got 70% hit rate. Not too bad for a starter I think.

2) I end up doing a lot of houseold chores during Saturday and Sunday. Earlier I used to do it by travelling on my car or my sis's scooter. I now use my bi-cycle. And let me tell you I have a 100% hit rate on this one.

Another blessing in disguise of (2) is my petrol costs have gone down from Rupees 2000 a month to 1600 Rupees.

I will make it a point to update every effort I take to this blog. Maybe, I will end up inspiring someone. :-)

Thought of the day

2005-09-15T18:26:00.000+05:30

From the very beginning you are being told to compare yourself with others.
This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying
your very soul ? because each individual is unique,
and comparison is not possible.
I am just myself and you are just yourself.
There is nobody else in the world you can be compared with.

No. Not me. It's Osho Rajneesh!

Truth behind the Ramayana

2005-09-12T13:21:00.000+05:30

We Indians have a deep rooted belief in the existance of Lord Ram and Lord Krishna. However, intellectuals have always been asking questions whether they really existed, or for that matter whether Ramayan and Mahabharat really happened.

Dr Ram Avtar has actually gone out and done instensive research for 15 years on finiding out the truth behind Ramayan. He has compiled a site which mentions his research in detail at www.shriramdarshan.org.

The site at first looks like a devotee's site. But have patience, click around a bit and you will be able to find what you actually came for on this site.

The reason I'm writing this piece on Dr. Ram Avtar is, Millions of people believe that Ram existed just because their forfathers have been saying it. Dr. Ram Avtar stands out among such blind believers. He actually went out to establish truth in his belief.

Believe me, 1 among a billion do that in real life !

Better Life!

2005-08-29T14:43:00.000+05:30

So what am I doing lately with my health?
Every weekend, 3 beers, a quarter of Vodka. Sorry ass fatty punjabi food in restaurants. Where the hell am I going to go with this? 100 kg by the age of 30? Or dead by the weight of fats itself !!

Time to put an end to this misery. I am quitting all sorts of fatty foods (except beer. Aww c'mon I can't quit that!)

A jog in the morning.
Taking stairs wherever I go.

But, you'll say this is alright. everybody does it. What's new with it. Same old initial josh !!

As usual I am going to the extreme!! Life isn't fun without crooked thought, is it?

I am buying a bicycle! Anybody interested in selling it second hand?

But Why?

I keep frequenting to my friends' places who live in Kalyani Nagar. Morever, now-a-days going out of Kalyani Nagar is stupidity. We've got everything there. A multiplex, a shopping mall, several restaurants and the most important, A DECENT BAR! Unless you wanna go on a long trip outside Pune why will you go out?

Everytime I go to these nearby places I take out my car or the two wheeler wasting fuel and polluting the environment.

And as it is I need to shed that extra flab. Not that I'm fat, but I am 6 kg overweight as per the instructor of my last gym stint.

So, just like it was in school you are going to find me hanging around the neighbourhood on a bicycle! I'm saying no to polluting the environment. I'm saying no to a sedentry lifestyle.Enough is enough.

Most importantly, I care about my mother earth and wish that you guys start caring too.

So learn from me now. Go and buy a bi-cycle.

I am abandoning Plastics!

2005-08-01T11:02:00.000+05:30

Its time we get rid of plastics.
1) It chokes innocent animals who think its paper and eat it (cows, buffaloes).
2) If you ever have a look at the garbage bins of our city which are overfull due to the neglect of Pune Municipal Corporation, you will notice that the reason it looks bad is due to the white/blue/black plastic bags which are flying around out of the garbage bins. Imagine the garbage bins without those bags and you will notice that the picture would be much better (of course, not perfect).
3) Plastic takes 300 years to disintegrate into the environment.

So from today I am going to try and avoid plastic as far as possible.

My two cents for protecting my environment!

India needs innovation. Here it is !

2005-07-28T10:48:00.000+05:30

I respect innovation. In fact, I worship it. It is the only way we can establish us as powerful country. They say, its not the straight heads, but omlette heads that rule the world. We need to be those omelette heads.

India desperately needs innovation. And its on the track. Here is one proud story.

Chandrashekhar Vibhute, an official related to the farming industry has developed worlds first completely soluble fertiliser. It took him 15 years of research in Solapur and Delhi labs to come up with this.

Since the fertiliser is soluble, it has zero impact on environmental pollution and soil hardening. This also makes it the world's first environmentally friendly fertiliser.

Hat's off to Mr. Vibhute!

Currently Mr. Vibhute is in talks with a fertiliser manufacturing company for mass manufacturing of this new fertiliser. The targetted markets are of course India and China according to Times of India.

strange smell

2004-12-12T04:16:00.000+05:30

In Winter here in UK there is a strange smell in the Warm clothing. For e.g. the warm jacket and the sweater I wear carry a strange smell. Once you wash them in around 2 weeks they catch the smell back again !!

if you know why could you be please be kind and reply at harshalvaidya at yahoo.

birthday

2004-09-28T05:19:00.000+05:30

2day was my 26th birthday. birthday in london is boring as compared to india since i dont have many friends here. in poona is was baddest assest in the world.

however, me n my roomies had a badass time at the local pub with a couple of beers. thats the fun part .. when people have fun ! all of them .. 2gether in sync!