Beware of the Telugu guys

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

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 !

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

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

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

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

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

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!!

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

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.