Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

My first experience in a Sailboat in Mumbai..

Posted: March 27, 2011 in Uncategorized
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With a brilliant coastline that Mumbai has, unfortunately, we still do not have a serious culture of water sports. So even though I have been born and brought up here, I have not had much of a “sea life”. The best was to go to Shivaji Park or Juhu beaches, as a kid, and build sand castles!

Off late, perhaps with recent upsurge in standard of living and wealth that has been created, we do see the emergence of a certain sea-sports and boating culture. In fact, there is a sudden jump in private boats, and we have the annual boat show as well, in Mumbai.

Two of my cousin sisters have enjoyed sailing and used to do it regularly in Mumbai, and that had created a sort of inspiration for a while. But still being far away in Chembur (from South Mumbai, I mean), and the opportunity, if at all, only being on Sundays, the inspiration had not converted to an actual experience so far.

So when a dear friend proposed the idea of trying out sailing, and said that he could set it up for us, I did not think much before doing my proverbial “chance pe dance”. For those who don’t get the phrase, it means that one grabs the opportunity to do something new and fun, when the said opportunity comes up. Without thinking too much!

And which is exactly what I did. And so the Sunday was decided. The wife and the elder daughter also agreed to come (I am sure, inspired by my two cousin sisters’ experiences, that we had heard much about in the past). The younger daughter unfortunately, was bang in the middle of her final exams, and could not join. So the three of us, and my friend, and few other friends, made our way to the Gateway of India, from where we were to do our sailing trip.

There were a set of instructions that our friend had given, for this outing. Wear comfortable, waterproof footwear. If you wear a cap, make sure there is a string that can fasten the cap (as otherwise, it could fly off). Get a plastic bag to hold the valuables. Get sun lotion..

We had done all of that. Part of my preparation was to use a pair of old rubber sandals that I had not worn in ages, but which fitted the requirement. Except what I did not know about these sandals was that the old rubber straps were so worn out that as soon as we reached Gateway of India, and started walking out of the car, when one sandal, and then the next one, broke off! And I was without footwear. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, with the hot tar roads below. We needed to rush to find a Colaba footwear store and buy new footwear for me!

After all that, we reached the boarding point, which was right across of the Taj Mahal Hotel. In a few minutes, the actual host and hostess (a Doctor couple, who were members of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club) came by and got things moving, for us. We were a party of 8, and we needed to split into two groups of 4, to take the row boats first. The row boats came all the way in, and we’d take these a bit into the water, and then in the middle of the waters, move over to the actual sailing boats.

There was a careful switch in the middle of quite deep waters, from row boat to sail boat. The only challenge was to ensure that we do not imbalance either of the boats, while we shifted.

Once into the sail boat, the Tindel (the helper who accompanies and actually maneuvers the sail boat – they are called Tindels; the name of our Tindel was Krishna) went about opening the two sails, as we watched in fascination.

And in a matter of minutes, we saw this boat with few bamboos jutting up convert itself, into something that will sail on its own, with the wind supporting the motion.

The Tindel was pulling a few of the strings that held the sails, so the sails would change directions and the boat would change directions. It was deft handling by someone who does this all the time, and it was extremely impressive. The boat made its way gradually, farther from the shores, and into the deeper seas.

The wind was decent and it took the boat ahead. The Tindel informed us that in case the winds came down, then we’d not move! And we would have to cast anchor and wait for the wind to pick up again! Thankfully the wind stayed with us all day, and we did not need to drop anchor and wait in the middle of the sea!

There were two of our groups, so we had two sailing boats to us, and we did not really move together. The second one moved ahead and went faster!

A little deeper into the sea, and we were able to see some really fancy boats out there. The Tindel was happy to introduce those boats to us, as these were owned by celebrity owners! The next best thing to celebrity-spotting is celebrity-boat-spotting!

We spotted several, including the 400 cr boat gifted to TIna Ambani, but Anil Ambani. That one was at a distance though. We reached pretty close to two other monsters. The one seen below, is the boat owned by Gautam Singhania:

And then we saw the boat of the other big boat man. Yes, the king of good times, Vijay Mallya. This is his boat, herebelow:

It was a relatively leisurely motion of the boat, even as we were watching all these scenes, and on our first such sailing trip, we were just getting a feeling that this was so easy and so much fun.

Just around this time though, the wind became a lot stronger. And the boat kind of flew a lot faster.

Obviously it was not even close to alarming, but for us first timers, it suddenly got very exciting. The Tindel got a lot more busy, as he worked on keeping the boat under control and steering it well.

But meanwhile, the boat bent across to one side, a lot. I was sitting on the side which was bending down and got very close to the water. Thinking I could make my humble contribution to the stability, considering my weight could make a difference (lol), I inched up a little on my side, so as to bring the weight inside, and not towards the side where the boat was leaning!

So that was the 10-15 min of excitement on our trip, after which time, the wind force came down, and the boat was stead and properly vertical once again.

And then we made our way back towards the shore. The timing was perfect. The sun was going down, and it made for some wonderful scenes.

Most of the pictures in this blog post, have been taken by my wife. And as we headed closer to the shore, she could not help taking some shots of Mumbai’s iconic structures, the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Gateway of India.

The return trip was the reverse of the going out one.

As we reached close to our row boat, Tindel Krishna first wound up the sails. We made small (actually, tiny) contributions to the wind up process. Once that was done, we carefully and gingerly stepped out of the sail boat, and into the row boat. One person at a time.

And then took the row boat back to shore.

For the end of a wonderful Sunday afternoon out.

A trip that we jumped on, in true ‘chance pe dance’ fashion. A trip of the kind I would highly recommend you to take, if you get a chance. Go for it! It’s a great experience..

Two months of TV Vanvaas about to end: What I missed, what I didn’t!

Posted: March 20, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Our family’s been on a self-imposed no-TV period, for about two months now.

The younger one is in the middle of Class X ICSE exams. And we had chosen to remove the one distraction that ate up time.

She has two papers to go now, and she’ll be done by next week. And with that this TV restriction will also go, for all of us.

So did I miss TV these two months??

Mostly not.

I know what I might have ended up seeing during this period, if the TV was on.

And I know what I’d have wasted my time on:

– Funny, but repetitive episodes of Tarak Mehta..

– Funny at times, boring otherwise episodes of Sajan Re Jhoot Mat Bolo,

– Many of the cricket matches – I am so glad the TV was off; I have not missed ANYTHING, and I am still on cue with the WC happenings (and just in time to watch the last few games now – as TV comes on prior to finals!)

But what I did miss was:

– Sitcoms on Star World – love the funnies,

– Since the WC is on, there were no major theatrical releases of films; and while I can do without TV, I need my cinema dope! It would have been good to catch some good stuff on Star Movies and the like. BUT with the TV off, there was little cinema to be seen in the last couple of months.

As for news, I have stopped seeing news on TV, since long. Since the time, they made a mockery of the Ayodhya verdict and almost tried to incite more “reactions” from people. When people were in fact, ready to let things be.

So news on TV is not part of my life. Although I might have been tempted to see it, during the Japanese disaster. But I made up for that, with good clips on broadband Internet. So again, did not miss TV for the news!

I am penning this to also be a reference point for me. To revisit this post and remind myself, as to what kind of TV, I should not get sucked into again.

But I will like to catch up on a few of the better funny sitcoms on Star World, catch some good movies on TV, and watch the few WC games that matter now.

Ahh.. TV-land, I am coming back to you.. 🙂

 

Struggling on Absurd Resumes – My Pet Peeve these days!

Posted: March 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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As we work on recruitment challenges, and add a fair number of people to the Social Wavelength team, one of the challenges has been to filter through the large number of resumes that come flowing in, in order to short list the candidates to meet.

And its been one hell of a frustrating exercise. Not without its share of humour though!

I acknowledge these facts:

– People are looking for a better job. Nothing wrong with that.

– There are many positions that are open, and it may be an effort to skim through the details, before applying for a job.

– On the company’s side also, finding the right candidate is a challenge.

– And yet, resumes do come in, aplenty, especially if the company has posted the vacancies at the right places.

So it becomes an exercise of elimination most times. Companies cannot possibly call everyone for an interview, and candidates are not taking enough effort to apply only to positions that work well for them.

So this is a gap that someone can work hard to fix. In the plethora of job sites, there appears to be a pain point still existing, and if someone can do a really good job of matching candidates and positions, then there is value to be created.

But on the candidates front, I have some unsolicited advice, if they’d like to really look for positions of their interest:

1. There has to be a reality check first. Someone completing internship applying for a GM position that demands 7-10 years experience, is only wasting his time, and that of the employer’s.

2. There’s nothing wrong with ambition and aspiration. If you ARE applying for a position which is a bit of a stretch, from the point of view of experience or education that is demanded, but you still want to give a shot at it, and believe it may be something you can take on, why don’t you write EXACTLY that, in the cover letter? How do you expect the employer to understand this, without your telling them? And if you are waiting for the interview call to tell them the reason, fact is that the call may never come at all! In absence of the clues that you choose to not give!

3. Can you personalize your resume as per the position you are applying for? Or at least have a bunch of resumes made and kept ready, and send the one that is more relevant for a position? What I see too often, perhaps because a candidate wants to be considered for multiple kinds of positions, are resumes that have almost EVERYTHING in them. Like the candidate’s God’s Gift to Mankind!! It is really incredible, all that packaging on the resume! Let’s understand this once and for all – the employer does NOT buy all that! And in the end, the employer does not know what you are REALLY good at. And ends up rejecting your application. Does not help you, does it??

4. A personalized resume works then. Focus on the requirement (and assuming you are a good fit for it, and you desire that position too) and cater the resume to highlight those parts that are relevant to that position. So when an employer reads it, there is an immediate connection. Like a “yes, this looks like the person we need”! This takes effort, but if YOUR objective is to get interview calls, then this is an approach that delivers best returns to you!

5. It’s a busy world, understand. Yes, you are too busy to not be able to personalize resumes. You’re too busy to read through the entire job posting before applying. So you think the employer has all the time in the world?? Why then, would you take so much time to come to the point, in the resume?? How many resumes have I seen recently where the ENTIRE PAGE ONE of the resume was all background, adjectives, summaries, general gas stuff.. !! If you are an experienced person and looking to apply for a position of seniority, what the employer needs to know is where you worked, and what you did there. If that information takes too long to come, the impression created is “too much gas, not much substance”. It may not even be true in all cases, but the presentation (or lack of it) kills!

6. Get to the point FAST. If you can put your entire career in 1 page, don’t take two. While a 1-2 sentence summary of your background may not hurt, don’t take a page to do that. Get to the point of where you worked. Besides the name of the company and the designation, mention crisply, the business of that company, your role, and key achievements. And then move on to the next company!

7. If some HR consultant or some other professional has guided you to do elaborate resumes, they have guided you wrong!! Trust me! People are busy. If you don’t get to the point fast, if you don’t cut to the chase, you are losing them. Rest assured. If you want the job, work to make it happen, and not just be a resume pusher.

8. And that is another thing to be conscious of. As you grow in the ranks, get ‘senior’, do you really want your resume to be flying all over? LIke you were a rolling stone? Be selective. Treat your resume with a lot of care. Don’t overexpose it. Make it pricey. And you will reap the rewards of a good, planned career growth!

Ahh.. monkey off my back. In addition to throwing out my frustrations, I have now also shared the right way to do it.

Hope that helps a serious job seeker.

What are your views on this? If you are an employer, are you going through similar challenges? If you are an employee, looking for positions, does some of this make sense to you? Share your views in the comments below.. !

27th day going.. in spite of the various reasons..

Posted: March 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Today’s going to be the 27th consecutive day.

It is a change happening in life, and my frequent mentions of the same, is a way to acknowledge the change! So bear with me, on this.

As I think back to previous attempts to be regular, and where I failed, and how different it has been this time, I can see some clear factors.

In these 27 days also, there have been enough issues where I could have taken a break. To my mind, it would have been justification enough. At least the way that I used to approach the same goal or resolve earlier, these factors were justifiable for taking a break.

What kind of issues I am referring to?

The slight pain in the knee..

That niggle in the ankle..

The cold and the cough, and the slightly sore throat..

The slightly early meeting that I needed to attend at work..

All of these were reasons earlier, to give the morning exercise routine, a miss.

This time around, I have not allowed myself such alibis.

Of course, if it was a really bad knee pain or ankle pain, I would have had no choice but to take the break. But I think, even on previous occasions, when I had succumbed to such excuses, it was never a bad paid or a bad throat. The early meeting at work was usually not that early, where I could not start 30 minutes earlier, do my morning exercise, and still make it to the meeting.

But those days, I was looking to take a break.

This time around, I am looking to make it happen.

So the break, as and when it happens first, will BE for a definitely unavoidable reason.

And therein lies the difference this time.

Have you tried to work on a good routine but failed? Kept going back to old ways? Or you succeeded? Love to hear about your experience. Do share in the comments below..

Would have not happened, if it was “once a week” or “5 days a week” etc.

Posted: March 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
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There are a couple of specific initiatives I have embarked upon in recent days.

One has been my well publicized daily walks and exercises. Yeah, I am now close to a month into it, without a single day’s break. The original target was to do a minimum 21 days at a stretch, the idea being that, 21 consecutive days or doing a thing, are necessary, to form a success habit.

The other thing I am doing these days, is to have a blog post, daily. Noticing the badge of “WordPress post a day 2011” on my friend, Makrand’s blog, I investigated into the concept, at WordPress. And I liked what I saw. That it was a commitment to do a blog post each day. There was also the other option of a post a week, in 2011. But I opted for the post a day. And here I am, posting daily, since that point in time!

So this time, both of these resolves are going fine. So far. And I hope that these will continue.

What is one of the differences that I have made, this time?

Most of my previous attempts at resolves of this kind, had a ‘loophole in the system’ for me! It would perhaps be a resolve of walking at least 4-5 times a week. Or it would be doing 5 days a week, but no weekends. Or writing a blog post at least once a week. Or something of that kind.

Those did not work.

When it is “once a week”, it could be any one day a week. And ‘any day’ is often ‘no day’. And that’s what would end up happening.

Likewise, if its 4-5 days a week, you might end up missing the first 1 or 2 or 3 days of the week, putting pressure on the rest of the week, and often not happening, again.

So what I found working this time was the precise and unambiguous (read “one that did not give loopholes”) target. Go for a walk DAILY. Period.

There are no clauses in addition, like “at least 4-5 times a week” or “all days, except weekends”. Or things of those kind.

A definition that is anything less than absolutely clear, leaves room for escape. We should not give ourselves that kind of room. Especially if we WANT to make something happen.

No sleepy Sundays or manic Mondays. If we have to do it, we have to do it. All days of the week, every week.

At the most, if we wanted to reduce the frequency, and say, do something on a weekly basis, STILL it is important to plan for the one day of the week, e.g. Tuesday or Thursday etc. That way, ON THAT DAY, there would be no room to escape.

This post is happening just a little before midnight, just so that it makes it to today’s post. Which is the commitment.

Yes, I am quite sure that its working for me, only because I kept it to a simple daily routine, without ambiguity.

It would have not worked any other way..

What do you think??

Partners in Business: Better Alike or Different??

Posted: March 15, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I spent a few hours at the recent Enterprising India Summit, organized by the Mumbai Chapter of TiE.

In the short time that I was there, I happened to catch a talk by Sachin Bansal, founder of Flipkart. As a part of his presentation, he talked about himself and his co-founder, and about how they were so alike that they could virtually replace each other. Well, at least on the work front. And of course, he was making it look like a great advantage that he had, in having two founders, with very similar backgrounds and skills.

I have wondered about this, though. Of course, not for Flipkart in particular, but for any entrepreneurial venture, in general.

It is an easier route often, for two (or more) classmates or good friends (with similar mindsets) to think about getting together, and starting an entrepreneurial venture. And quite likely, they may have the same background, skills, aptitude, approach etc.  And maybe due to this factor, there is a fundamental comfort, as they may end up agreeing more than disagreeing. This may also make for good chemistry.

But is this good for the venture?

Think about it from these perspectives:

1. A startup is usually a lean organization. Each person of the startup team is contributing in his / her own way, so as to make the whole. There is usually no room for buffer and no room for redundancy. Then, having two (or more) very crucial members of the team, viz. the co-founders, to have similar backgrounds, is it not an expensive redundancy for the startup?

2. We have also read stories of the so-well-constructed founding team of Mindtree where they were absolutely clear of the kind of skills that were necessary to build Mindtree as a company, and how they looked for, and found and lured people in, to be a part of that founding team. Recent events have put a question mark on the company, but that apart, the effort at the time of founding, and the process, was exemplary. Is that a better way to go about it? Identify key skills that will be necessary for your mission, and then look for partners who can be co-founders in your venture??

3. When things are going fine, it is good to have people who ‘get along well’ and have a similar mindset. However at the first signs of challenge, what if the co-founders all, only think in one common way? What if there is no counter point of view? There is no challenge to the proposal? While different mindsets can sometimes cause potentially, the ship to go in different directions (however, that happens when there is a lack of maturity in the team), on the positive side, different mindsets or approaches give you multiple perspectives on the same issue. And at different times, there may be value and relevance of a different approach. In that respect, non-uniformity of thought, a certain diversity in fact, is a great asset to have, at the founding team level.

So I do wonder on the best approach here? I think startups need a mix, at the founding team level. Success of Flipkart may not be because the founders are so-alike, but in spite of it! Sometimes, we look at success and try to draw all inspiration from it. Try to ape the entire model. Flipkart may not have succeeded because the partners are so alike, but because of managing to do many other things right.

Also it may be appreciated that two or more people, going to the same college or the same program, do not necessarily make for identical people. Yes, their educational background would be same (and if technical skills are crucial, then this may again be a challenge – that all founders know only the one same thing!), but in terms of aptitude or creativity or other characteristics, they could easily be chalk and cheese.

So that is the crucial element. Have the chemistry to work together well, the maturity to respect each other’s points of view and take decisions only and only, in the interest of the venture, but yet be different enough, to bring variety of skills and approaches to the table, for the venture to get the best value!

What is your opinion on this? Are you a part of a co-founders team? What kind of mix you have in your founding team? Would love to know about his.

** This post is also cross posted in my startup review blog, The Gray Hair Speaketh. **

The Age of Innocence

Posted: March 13, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Adenwala Road, Matunga was where I was born and brought up.

I spent the first 25 years of my life, on that beautiful road, lined with huge trees, on both sides, quiet, close to the 5-gardens on one end, and the King’s Circle on the other. All those 25 years when I was there, I lived in the same flat, same building, same road. That one place..

Since then, I have moved to Chembur, and have already been at three different places in Chembur, in this period!

However, that is not the focus of this post.

The post is triggered by a visit to Adenwala Road today, after many years. Okay, I have passed that place, many times, in between, but today after many years, I went to the road, specifically, once again.

There are a lot of great memories associated with childhood. Part of those are clearly around the place where one grew up.

For me, I have memories of Adenwala Road. One of the smoothest roads of that time. Which allowed for us to learn and then ride the bicycle there. And also learn skating on those Bharat Bandh days, and play cricket as well, on the road.

I have memories of the buildings and the people, the walk on that road, to go to 5-gardens, or the other side, to run errands and pick up stuff from King’s Circle.

Ahh.. those were the days. The days of innocence.

A lot of years have passed. And I don’t want to count them, and feel old!!

But when I went today, although the road was the same, the trees were there, and so were the 5-gardens, it all seemed a little different.

Most of the building had changed. In place of the quiet old, small buildings with nice balconies, and the old elegance, I now saw the many multi-storeyed, modern structures. With fancy styles, colors, the multi level parking lots, and what not.

I also sensed a lot of traffic now. Obviously the kids there today, may not find it easy to learn skating on the busy roads. Of course, we also do not have the Bharat Bandhs now, to catalyze that movement. Then again, I am not sure, if kids of today, WANT to learn skating at all. They should have the time between their XBoxes and Wiis and Facebooks and Blackberrys, right?!

The 5-gardens were not the same either.

The gardens used to be very quiet and absolutely beautiful. One garden was where some cricket would get played, one had some stuff for younger kids, there was yet another more suited for senior citizens, and then one, was frequented by lovers. The central garden was more decorative in nature, smaller, and just made up the circle at that cross street.

Walking on a Sunday evening today, we had to keep dodging scores of other people. In spite of a World Cup cricket match going on. There were all kinds of people everywhere. There was no automatic segregation, like it used to happen earlier. There were also the slightly rougher crowd, that would make young girls a little hesitant to walk alone. This was surely not the case, in my childhood. A lot of traffic and a lot of crowd.

Even around the 5-gardens, there were monstrous buildings that had come up, I am sure, commanding astronomical prices.

We took just the one round. We were little uncomfortable.

I had never felt like this in all these years. Maybe it was just the passage of time.

Or maybe I still associated the place with that Age of Innocence, which had long gone past..

Where were you when…?

Posted: March 13, 2011 in Uncategorized
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.. the World Trade Centers were felled down, on 9/11?

I was at my Homeindia office, in Vasan Udyog Bhavan, in Lower Parel. Got a call from home, and I had to ask a couple of times disbelievingly, before realizing what was happening!

————–

..Indira Gandhi was assassinated?

I was studying in the reading room, at VJTI. It was study leave days, before our semester exams. Someone came in and broke the news. And shocked as we were, me, and couple of my friends (Hareesh and Shabbar) rushed to my home (walking distance from VJTI) and watched the details, in shock.

—————

..the news of my maternal grandmother’s passing away was given to me?

The first ‘death’ that I dealt with in life. I was playing cricket with friends in 5-gardens. The place is about 10 min walking distance to my home. Ansuya masi (neighbour plus almost family) walked all the way up, and into the garden. I was shocked to see her there on the ground. She broke the news as mildly as she could, to me. I was very young, in school. Had no idea how to react. The other friends did not know what news had been conveyed to me. I walked up to the stumps, removed the stumps, and started walking away. They were wondering what suddenly came about. And asked me. I don’t think I replied. Aunty perhaps, told them, and then they quietened down. Even they were young like me, and did not know how to react or show their support. I walked up home, and up the 3 storeys, to my flat. No one else was at home. I slept on the bed, thinking that I should cry. Tears did not come. I just lay there.

——————

..the news of my paternal grandfather’s passing away was conveyed to me?

I was at a motel in Los Angeles. My brother, cousins and my parents had come to visit, in the summer after I had completed my MS. Due to the call that my grandpa was not well, my parents had rushed back to India. My brother and the other cousins (all more than 10 years younger to me) were all in the US still, but they were out somewhere, with my aunt and uncle, from the US. I was in the motel, alone. Waiting for them to come back. And the call came from my Dad, from India. I went to the reception (prior to phone in room days, and certainly prior to cell phone days) and spoke to him. Again, he tried to break the news as best as he could. But there was no easy way to say that he was no more. I asked some questions about what happened, how it happened, etc. I made proper conversation, and then put the phone down.

I was all alone there, near the phone. As soon as the phone was kept down though, the tears started flowing out of my eyes. I cried uncontrollably, and walked to my room (a small distance), crying profusely. In a few minutes, my friend and roommate from USC was anyway due to visit me, and he reached there. And found me in that state. And he gave me support. Asked me to cry away as much as I wanted to. Which I did. And then I calmed down.

—————

I can’t remember exactly, where I was when my maternal grandfather passed away.

I can’t remember exactly, where I was and what was I doing, when I got the news of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

I can’t remember the time when the Babri Masjid was felled or when exactly I heard of the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

I do remember, a lot of what happened after that, for all of these incidents too, including what I was doing later on.

Like going and picking up my parents from the airport, as they returned from Mauritius, just a few days after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Or the last rites of my maternal grandfather, etc.

I just do not remember the exact instance when I got the news.

I presume, for whatever reason, there are some incidents that leave impact. And get hard coded into our heads. Stay alive in memory, and are fresh, even many years later.

People in the US remember what they were doing when JFK died! That has been one of the most impactful incidents that Americans experienced during those years.

For Indians, it may have been Indira Gandhi.

Can you jog your memory and see if there are incidents of many years back, but you remember the exact detail? Especially incidents involving some shock or some personal tragedy or even something positive?

Voyeurism’s here to stay: We live in the age of Reality Shows!

Posted: March 12, 2011 in Uncategorized
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No, I am not talking of the Big Boss, or Big Brother, or Indian Idol, or Masterchef..

I am aware all of these have their humungous following, but most times, I am not a part of it.

But I am a film buff, if anything. And I like a lot of different genres of films. Including political drama, thrillers, adventure, etc.

So I would get my fill on these different kinds of films, by viewing interesting different films in the respective genres.

All the President’s Men for political drama.

Satya for a mafia thriller.

Poseidon Adventure for adventure.

And such.. scores of them, in fact.

And then suddenly, there were cameras everywhere in real life.

And there was connectivity.

And there was competition in news channels. And CNN and the Gulf War happened.

And things were never the same again.

We do not today, necessarily, need a fictional story narrated to us, in theatre, to give us the thrills.

We now have reality shows. Which we are so eager to lap up.

The live drama of terrorism and the forces battling it out, on 26/11.

The terrorist attacks, and the crumbling down in front of our eyes, of the iconic World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.

The audio tapes of RadiaGate, making us feel like a fly in the wall, in corporate political lobbying.

And the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, now.

Millions of us, all around the world, glueing on to our television sets, watching all this drama unfold in front of our eyes.

Much like a Slumdog Millionaire or a Titanic, which gets the world to go and watch. Except all these are not fiction. They are reality. And all these are live and evolving as we see. Where no director has already penned out the end of the story. The story is unfolding in front of our eyes, and nobody knows what the end will be. And there is no ‘match fixing’ either. It is indeed a suspense drama.

And while we see the action pieces, we also see the people. The scampering and escaping rescued folks from the Taj on 26/11.

Those that got saved at the World Trade Center, and the bodies of those who didn’t. And the mourners of the latter.

People caught in the tsunami in Japan, perhaps praying for their lives, desperately hanging on.

As if it was theatre, we the voyeurs of the world, keep watching, marveling, commenting, tweeting, updating Facebook. As we “enjoy” the screenplay. Sorry for the choice of the word – enjoy. But beyond a point, for all those who are at a distance from the happening, it is not much different from going into the theatre, and watching a film.

When that participant on Big Boss cries, we KNOW it is drama.

When the small child rescued in an earthquake has panic, fear and tears, do we see her different from the reality show on TV??

I don’t have answers. I am just posing questions. And sharing my views on the new realities of life..

What have you to say on this? Love to read other opinions..

Technology: How It Hurt Me and then How It Rescued Me..

Posted: March 12, 2011 in Uncategorized
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The other day, I was out on the road, in client meetings.

I had a late night GoToMeeting set up with a US company, where I was to interact with a few of their team members together. This had been planned long back, and I had diligently recorded the same in my phone calendar, with a proper reminder set up as well, to alert me sometime prior to the meeting time.

Here’s what happened.

The call was to happen at 10 pm. The call had been planned several days back, and it was not fresh in my mind through the day, except that I was secure in having put it on my calendar, and which would provide me with the reminder, when I needed it.

At around 8 pm, I was heading to a coffee shop, for one last meeting, in Mumbai, before I headed back home. Around that time, after the day long toll on it, the cell phone battery decided to die. Zilch.

I have a car charger, so I plugged that in, even as I sat on the back seat, while my driver drove me to the coffee shop.

When I reached the coffee shop, and removed my phone from the charger in the front of the car, I saw that the phone had not got charged at all. Damn. For some reason, maybe the connection was a little loose or something. So still no phone.

I had a regular charger, and I carried that with me, inside the coffee shop. Before I started my meeting, I plugged the charger and the phone into the wall socket. And relaxed to have a good meeting.

As bad luck would have it, by the time the meeting ended, and I picked the phone up, I realized that AGAIN, the phone had NOT got charged at all. I had no clue why that happened. With the car charger, I have had the experience of the cigarette lighter socket in the car, not being the perfect one, and causing such hiccups in the past too. So I had not thought much about the phone not having got charged in the car.

In the coffee shop however, I had taken for granted that the phone is charging. So it came as a shock that the phone still did not charge at all, by the time the meeting got over.

And due to the phone being off, the calendar was off too. And I got no reminder for my call at night!!

And it was already almost 10 pm, when the meeting ended. Not having any warning on the next agenda, I had let the meeting continue, without much stress to wind it up.

As I got into the car though, I switched my laptop on, and I did have the Photon Wi-fi unit, and that battery was doing fine! As soon as I went live on the laptop, there was a message right there, from the folks in the US, who were waiting for me. It was already 5 min into the con-call time. And then I remembered the call that was scheduled! It was a shock, as I had otherwise, completely missed it.

Thankfully, it was only 5 min into the call time, and I decided to quickly get on to it. It was a GoToMeeting, and often, I have known these to enable audio, via the PC mic and speakers. Usually there is an option to use the PC audio set up, or to dial in for audio. I had not noticed, when the GoToMeeting invitation had come, that this was a dial-in only audio meeting. There was NO option to use the PC audio.

And remember, my phone was discharged! Heck.. now what?!

Having joined the meeting late, with 5 others already waiting there, and wanting to talk to me, and now I needed to tell them, that I could not speak to them, as I did not have  a way to call them?! This was turning out to be really bad..

When I conveyed that I seemed to have an audio issue for dialing in, they offered if they could dial out to a number and get me into the call. It was a great thought. BUT MY PHONE WAS DOWN, and I was in a car!

What do I do?

Luckily, I remembered that the driver had a phone too. Of course, not with ISD calling features. But since the opposite party had offered to call in, I asked for my driver’s cell, and got them to call me on that number. And the call happened.

All of this anxiety and solution took about 10 minutes, but not more, and we were into the call, about 15 minutes too late. But the call did happen.

Its another thing that the call lasted long. And it continued even as I reached my home. So I continued sitting inside the car, in my building, for a good 30 minutes, after reaching home, and continued to do the call.

There were the night walking neighbors of the building who walked by my car few times, and they might have wondered, why did I not come out of the car, and why did I have the laptop open and was working inside the car?! 🙂

Ahh.. we are slaves to technology and yet, it is technology that enables. How else would I have managed to talk to these 5 persons, together, for an hour or so, if not for this tech!!

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