CEOs Dilemma

Once upon a time (but not so long ago), a corner office of a big corporate was an object of great desire for any ambitious manager. Fat paychecks, bonuses, unimaginable power and of course the fame if you did a good job. I don't know if this is still the case. But then the old adage "what goes up, comes down" consistently delivers on its money. And it has done so yet again. CEOs nowadays are available for dime a dozen or precisely for a $1.00 per year salary. Take the case of any big company today, the story seems to be the same. In some cases this $1.00 salary does not include perks such as flying around in corporate jets asking for bailouts from the government or taking holidays in exclusive retreats. What the job really comes with is, a lot of challenges, a lot of criticism, a lot of tough decisions like letting go of employees and constant media scrutiny waiting for that one wrong step that will bring down the intricate house of cards. All this for one measly $1.00. Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe, $1.00 is no more measly. Maybe these CEOs are getting overpaid for the job they have on hand. Whatever be the case, they have their job cut out for them. Any takers?

So, while these CEOs try to use their numerous years of experience to bring us out of this quagmire and get grossly overpaid for it, there was one CEO – Paul Levy of Beth Israel Hospital - this week who was bent on saving the jobs of thousands of people who work for his hospital in a unique but effective way. This man certainly does deserve more than a dollar. Its nice to see that some good guys are still hanging on there. Check his blog at http://runningahospital.blogspot.com.

Taxman Cometh

As I write this post, I watch A.R. Rahman win his much-deserved Oscar. Congrats. I first noticed his music in a Doordarshan program called Madras Telugu Academy Presents that used to be telecast on Sundays. He had composed music for the programme's title and credits. It was the first time I had heard a synthesizer and it was mesmerising to say the least. More than the programme, I used to wait for the end credits to roll when the tune used to be played. Seems that I do have a taste for good music after all ;-)

Anyways, its that time of the year again when the taxman will come pay me a visit to take his dues. Which reminds me of the unpleasant fact I worked a little over a third of my time for the him this year. It is painful to see that the very people who are responsible for making sure that this money is used with prudence are themselves misusing the funds. And I also end up paying on behalf of the tax evaders who know a million ways to hide their money from the taxman. I wish there was a little more rationalization while the taxman cast his tax net so that it could be spread wider instead of deeper. Sigh! all that hard-earned money which could have bought me a well-earned vacation or some such well-earned stuff being given away without a question.

Having said that, I don't mind paying my taxes as much. So long as the money is spent for the right purposes. I feel comforted by the fact that I am also paying for the country's defense forces, for its infrastructure and for the countless number of children who can avail free and subsidized education. Taxman, you are welcome. But just make sure that you make good use of my share of dues.

Steamy Memories

Sometime last year, when I was flying with Lufthansa, I came across an article about restored Junkers in Lufthansa's in-flight magazine. Junkers JU 52 were pre-WW-II era aircraft that were used for both civilian and military services. Lufthansa had lovingly restored one of the planes and was even flying them on a special route from Berlin Tempelhof to give its passengers a whiff of the bygone era. Nice.

Now, I am not a big fan of all things old but there are still a few things that make me say, "In the good ol' times we had...." One of them of being the Steam Engines that powered our railways till the electric and diesel versions took over. I can never get over this steam engine fascination of mine. While all the kids (at least I think most of them) in the class were dreaming about becoming pilots, I used to be firmly grounded driving (if you can call it that) trains over a pair of parallel rails. In reality, I was lucky enough to be around these Steam Engines during my holidays. I always liked the way the grimy bandannaed engineers handled these machines and I wanted to badly belong to that elite club. I knew then that I would one day be a Steam Engine driver/engineer (depends on the continent you are on).

All this might sound like a juvenile English assignment (with a very corny title) but I can't express it any other way. Steam Engines were cool. Period. An engineer's ultimate driving machine if you can call it that. To use a clichéd phrase, you needed to get up close and personal with one to believe them. The long black imposing machines spewing steam looked like a beast that'd just come to life and is ready to devour anything in its way. The huge wheels interconnected by coupling rods that moved in tandem, smokestack belting out black smoke and soot and the faraway look of the headlight that gave a feeling that the engine was already planning out its trip to the destination. While all this was happening, in case any dumb soul even managed to venture near its path, the engine's mighty signature high-pitched whistle was a sure warning of the things to come. A display of unadulterated raw power.

As an engineer (or engine driver), you had to stick out your neck out (literally and idiomatically) to peer over the long boiler to see what lay in the engine's path when it moved. The glassless windows meant for viewing were as good as useless. The only view one had through these windows were that of the boiler. The heat inside the engineer's cabin due to the boiler's furnace would be unbearable and one had to work like a slave to keep the engine moving. The driver and his assistant had to constantly haul coal from its coal truck and shovel it into the boiler furnace, so that the steam pressure was maintained just right. One had to use a regulator to control the speed (which depended on the train, the bogies and the distance to be covered). No computer readouts telling you the speed or the steam pressure. No auto pilots. You had to depend on just plain pressure gauges, the sounds - read that as puffing, wheezing, drumming - the engine made and then use your years of experience to interpret these sounds correctly to ensure that the passengers or goods reached the destination safely and on time. No cozy air-conditioned cabins, no joystick type levers, no satellite or two-way radios, no silent whirring of the turbines and definitely no cushioned seats to relax on. A true labor of love. And if you felt (yes, felt) that you were losing traction you had to drop sand through sand pipes every now and then on the tracks to prevent wheelspin. It was a constant rigour of backbreaking work coupled with alertness. But extremely satisfying at the end of the day. A real job for a real man.

I still feel sad that you don't get to see them anymore. Steam Engines have become relics of a bygone era. By the time I was of a legal driving age, the steam engines had run out of steam. For me, it was an end of a career I had dreamed of even before it started. All that massive hardware becoming obsolete and extinct in a way depicts the extinction of the industrial era's dinosaur. But while the steam engines interconnected places and changed our economy, they were commanding beasts indeed. At the cost of repeating myself, one of the few things that make me say, "In the good ol' times we had...."

But all is not lost. Microsoft's Train Simulator (though a poor substitute to the real thing), Railroad Tycoon 3, Sid Meier's Railroads have helped me sustain my fascination, at least virtually. The Murder on the Orient Express and The Flying Scotsman in MTS are real fun episodes and I never get tired of "driving" these special trains. And while these are cool, cooler still is the series "Thomas (the Tank Train) and Friends." I enjoy it as much as the kid next door does. I am sure the producers of the show love steam engines as much as I do. May their tribe increase.

Money for Nothing?

As Olympics 2008 came to an end, so did a lot of things. One of them happened to be the fate of the Bird's Nest Stadium. It definitely cost a bomb - and then some - to build. Now, it is not clear what this spectacular structure is going to be turned into. The stadium has not been used much since the end of the Olympic Games and paint is already peeling in some areas. Was all that money spent for nothing? A point worth debating. But in my opinion, some structures need to be built.

I remember a story about one such monument called Bada Imambara in Lucknow. The story goes that Bada Imambara was built during the 18th century when the kingdom of Avadh faced a big famine. In order to create jobs for the people, the then Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula commissioned a huge project of building a monument that would employ the people stricken by famine. The famine lasted for a decade and so did the construction of the building. Story goes that while the workers carried out the construction during the day, the Nawab employed people to break down the structure during the night in order to ensure that the construction lasted till the end of the drought. If this story is true, then it was a noble act indeed. Maybe such a make-break-make project should be commissioned during these hard times too. History is full of such lessons we need to know about. Unfortunately, we are too busy dealing with our present to look back into time. Perhaps, we should hit the pause button once in a while and rewind a bit to see if there are any such easter eggs we can discover and use them now.

Do Super Strategies Work in Hard Times?

I wouldn't want to add another line to the billions of lines already written by experts about the global slowdown. But what I'm really interested in is how to make a consumer buy any product in such tough times. Of course, many of us will tend to buy only stuff that is really really necessary. But before that, we would first evaluate if that stuff is really really necessary. And think again till we are convinced that it is really really necessary. However, how about products that are really not so necessary or can wait? How can you make people buy such stuff? I am sure that this is a big challenge for marketing professionals and companies. And since companies don't have enough budget to spend on advertising, the challenge gets compounded. So how can you persuade people to buy your products?

I am curious because of the spot of bother the automakers are in. The automakers would like a faster turnaround of their inventories by making people buy their cars. Though changing a car or buying a second car might not be a necessity for us in these tough times, it is necessary for the automakers that we buy their cars. Because, they need to make newer cars, they need to invest in research for newer cars and most of all, they need to keep their employees from losing their jobs. So, will the super strategies of the advertisers and companies that worked in the past work now? At the same time, even if the companies did have a super strategy, how will the companies persuade people to spend money when they don't have any? Looks like a vicious circle that's going to be a bit tough to break. And of course its not just the automakers, there are other companies too. I would love to see if someone's strategy does work in these very hard times. Anyways, its going to be an interesting case study. One of my company's top bosses said that this current global meltdown is once-in-a-century kind of thing to happen. I couldn't agree more and I wouldn't want such a thing to happen even once in a century. And while people try to work their way through this mess, how will a bailout to an automaker help the consumer who ultimately has to buy that car? Who's going to bail him out to buy a car if he doesn't have a job? Go figure.

Non sequitir: Why do chemical companies still blatantly dump toxic affluents in areas where they are not supposed to? Really, its such a pity that we don't do much about this problem. I wish we were a lot less indifferent to such criminal deeds.

HOMP on TV

Sometimes, TV surprises you. You discover offbeat programs that give a different outlook from the regular fare. Not that I am against any soaps on TV. One of my recent favorites has been "Highway on My Plate." This TV series has been going from strength to strength episode after episode. Unlike other TV shows which have pretty anchors reading off scripts, thankfully you have two smart anchors who make sure that they keep you engaged with their goofy commentary on food they come across from various regions of India as they travel on the Indian highways (hence the name). I hope we have more of such programs.

Message in a Bottle

(Source: smh.com.au Photo: Sheryl Waideman)

I always have had this weird thought when I go to a seaside. That is, to send a message in a bottle. The only thing that stops me from doing this is, my lack of imagination to write a proper message. A message that I would be proud of before I cork it up in a bottle. The cynic in me takes over and laughs at my weirdness and lack of imagination. Creativity eludes me.

But the weirdness of the deed made me google about it. I am surprised to know that a message in a well-sealed bottle is well-preserved as the bottle can withstand a lot of things that would be thrown at it by the sea. In short, it is very seaworthy. I read somewhere that bottles keep bobbing for a long long time across continents for hundreds of years. Cool. And over these hundreds of years, several useful things have come out of sending messages in bottles. In fact, Benjamin Franklin used it for his work to trace ocean currents in the Atlantic!

The next time I'm going to a seaside or a riverside, I will be all set with a bottle and well-sealed message inside it. Till that time, let me think about the message. It sure sounds interesting.

From Shining Stars to Blackholes

(source: "Born Loser" from comics.yahoo.com)

Nowadays, no news seems to be good news. Its funny how things can change in such a short span of time. A few months ago, my co-workers were grumbling that they did not get a bonus despite their hard work. Everyone had grand plans to look forward to. With stars in their eyes, the sky was the limit. Now, they are thankful that they still have their job. No bonuses, no promotions but still people are happy to come to work. They are working harder than ever before. The boss no longer seems to be the bad guy or a slave-driver. What was good earlier is now bad and what was bad earlier now seems to be good. But the million-dollar (make that a multi-billion) question everyone's asking is, "where did all that money from the good times go?" I wish I knew. At least now I know the meaning of a blackhole. A not so great place which sucks up everything that comes in its path. Hope we can get out of its way in time.

Stay In and Be Green

I love plants. And that's the reason why I stay away from them. I can kill a plant just by looking at it. Plants and weeds alike. There is no discrimination. I can never water them right. Either I "underwater" them or "overwater" them. I don't know how to keep the garden pests away. And being a self-confessed greenie, I guess its a gift I can do without. So I try to stay away from flowerpots, bushes, woods, forests as much as possible. Let them live for some more time. They deserve it.

I just can't understand how some people get around with plants. For example, my Mom grows a variety of plants such as aloe vera, a rose bush, a flowering plant, a creeper and some other plants (whose names I don't know) in the small verandah we have. Which is the reason why the verandah is off limits for me. I can't stand out on a sunny day and take in the sun. Sigh! such is life. Staying indoors to save the outdoors.

But the fact remains that, no matter where you live, you can grow plants with very minimal effort. All it takes is a little ingenuity. A few flower pots, some broken or unused furniture, a little channel for water flow and èt voila! You can grow almost whatever you want even without a greenhouse. So I'm going to take up the challenge of growing orchids and bamboo. Or maybe I will take up ikebana. I hope I don't mess up. At least it is going to be something different from what I've been doing for a while.

I've been Bean Counting

Another bunch of assignments. Sometime back, I had enrolled myself into a financial management course (goes to prove that an idle mind's a devil's workshop). My intention was to know the stuff I don't know in finance that I ought to know. Or, at least know what I don't know about money. Which essentially means everything. Now I am stuck with a whole bunch of assignments that are due by 31st of Jan. I have been scratching my head, chewing on my pencil(s), fuming, googling and generally getting frustrated but these assignments still don't make any sense to me. Its been an uphill task working on them and it gets worse by the day. Financial ratio analysis, corporate finance, working capital management, athens, parthenon, kanakaredes, cryptos, mykros all sound the same to me. Yea, you guessed it, Greek. With a sprinkling of Latin. So instead of working on my assignments - after having another red bull and chewing on the last pencil I had - I am writing this post. Speaking of pencils, with all that chewing, I have now acquired a taste for graphite. I can now tell which pencil is a real connoisseur's delight and which one is Burger King's Big Whopper. But I still can't calculate how many pencils I need to chew on before I can successfully understand Break-Even analysis. Anyways, let me get back to my assignments. My cash flow statement problem seems to be showing that my cash flow is zero (maybe its due to this recession). So, let me correct it before I lose my net present value.

Before signing off here's a lame joke about an Investment Bank's Balance Sheet I picked up from somewhere in the dubyadubyadubya.

"There are two sides to an Investment Bank's balance sheet: the left side and the right side.
On the left side there is nothing right, and on the right side there is nothing left."

Cheers.

Ciao 2008

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/comics/)

Almost everyone I know feels relieved that the year 2008 has ended. The opinion across the board is the same. 2008 was like a roller-coaster ride that started on a very high note and ended with a stomach-churning steep fall, which sobered up many of us who were celebrating the good times. In my opinion, it was like having a morbid hangover after a great last night's party. Contrary to the year's first-half that brought a lot of cheer to everyone with each passing day, the second-half brought more and more grim news on a daily basis.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/comics/)

In a twisted way sort of way, 2008 taught us to be more careful, more economical and be more happy with less.

I wish that 2009 will be a lot better. For everyone. Happy New Year. Peace.

26/11: To all those innocent people and brave men and women who lost their lives. May their souls rest in peace. (Photo source: http://www.markmallett.com).

Perfect Timing

I just love these watch ads on print. The Swiss ones especially. "XXXXXXXX, Geneve, Swiss Made". Fill the XXXXXXXX with the name of your favorite Swiss watch. Different variations but essentially the same theme. Makes one feel that watchmaking is a cottage industry in Geneva. Which might well be the case. Almost all the brands' ads feel similar. Some show timepieces in such an enticing way that it might easily drive a person into becoming an obsessive watch addict. Put in a male celebrity in a black jacket (or a female one in a cocktail gown as the case maybe) and put a watch on their wrist. Some other brands show golf and tennis celebrities having a ball of a time wearing an expensive timepiece from the watchmaker's collection. While the dial's big enough to stand out like a neon sign, they try to make it as subtle as possible by focusing on the successful celebrity. Very understated. Very hush hush. It feels as if they are advertising some feminine care product (which, I must have to say are not so discreet these days).

There's a new James Bond movie. Which means Omega is going to throw all discreet stuff out of the window to make sure you know James Bond's timepiece of choice (the Omega Seamaster, just in case you didn't know) no matter in whichever corner of earth you are hiding. I am sure you must be familiar with the ad by now. Mr. Bond is tactfully holding a gun in such a way that the jacket and shirt cuffs move up to reveal the face of an expensive watch adorning the wrist of one of the most famous leading men on earth (or movies) with the byline "007's watch of choice" or something like that. You get the feeling that if you were lucky to get into the MI6 or 5 or whatever, you'd get a nicely cut suit and a Swiss watch as standard issues, which unfortunately, is not the case. But for all that advertising, I am sure the watch sells. I know. I know because I gifted myself a Swiss watch with my first full-time job's first paycheck (every cent of it went into the watch and I survived on borrowed bread and water for the next two months). What I didn't know at that time was that these watches were not as strong and rugged as they were made out to be. So though I didn't do any double somersaults or jump off planes without a parachute or go sailing in Monaco, within six months, my new shiny steel watchband was all scratched up. But despite that, the watch was worth it. It felt nice wearing something that cool. I didn't mind going on a diet for the next 30 days. But now I knew why Commander bond always wears a full sleeved shirt when he has a Swiss watch on. Q might allow James to bang up a couple of Aston Martins (no, again they are not standard issues in MI6, or 5 or whatever) in every new assignment, but will not tolerate even a microscopic scratch on his Swiss watch. That would amount to gross misconduct in Q's rule book. So the next time you buy an expensive Swiss watch, make sure you wear it when you are wearing your Sunday best. On other days, better wear your $20.00 Timex which you bought in that Thanksgiving sale. That's what I do. OK, Let's leave it at that.

I recently came across another ad that takes the cake. This one is for Swatch and is also related to the new James Bond movie. Now, before you start thinking that James Bond has gone shopping for cheap stuff because of the economic downturn, let me explain. His watch continues to be Omega Seamaster (recession be damned!). The Swatch watch (I like the sound of that) I am talking about is worn by the villain. Now that's what I call a flash of genius. Since the leading man is already tied to another brand by contractual obligations, get the next most important man in the movie, the villain to endorse for your product. They even have a website listing the "007 Villain Collection" (http://www.swatch007villains.com). I never knew that the Bond Villains also had their own preference for watches. Or, maybe they chose Swatch simply because it kept more accurate time than all those handmade automatics (I meant watches, not guns) and costed a fractionth of the price. After all, for these supervillains, time was of essence and every second counted while their diabolical minds planned to take over the world. Whereas for Mr. Bond, he'd get into action only after downing a few martinis, checking out some local beauties and getting almost killed. Talk about lethargy. A few seconds here and there wouldn't matter. That heavy slab of metal called Omega tied to your wrist can really restrict your movements. I also see another reason for Swatch being the Villains' choice. The watches are quite funky and over the top, just like the villains' personalities. Cool. My next watch is going to be a Swatch.

Welcome to Wall Street, Las Vegas

With all this financial meltdown going on, saw a nice ad in the newspaper. Sometimes a picture says a thousand unsaid words.

The caption reads: "When did Wall Street and Las Vegas merge?". To be honest, to me, they always were the two faces of the same coin. You risked what you could and come out a winner (rarely), or get burnt (and learn your lesson) or lose your shirt. Of course the odds of losing might be different (in Vegas they say the house always wins) but then isn't it something you always knew? As the French say, C'est la vie.

Gordon Gekko's thumping statement "Greed is good" in the movie 'Wall Street' no longer feels like sweet music to my ears. And as the greedy guys like me get cautious, Mr. Warren Buffett goes shopping. Just like he said, “Be fearful when others are greedy. when others are fearful be greedy.” For me, its a lesson well learnt. Greed's definitely not good.

Trave(b)logue

Been traveling again. Three hotels in two weeks. And all in the same city. Sounds crazy. Feels crazier still in reality. I can't imagine how the backpack travelers go about their road trip. But there have been some positives. For example, I can wake up and go to work without having to worry about making the bed in the morning. I can just walk into any food joint and eat something and need not bother to wash the dishes for dessert. But the best is yet to come.

A nice calm beach. Setting Sun. Seagulls hovering around the pier. Kids building sand castles. Grown-ups having a good time. And you in the middle of it after having a difficult day at the office. It is difficult to imagine such a scene in the middle of a city. However, it is true. Tucked away in a corner of San Francisco's busy Fisherman's Wharf is one such little beach. No sign of frenetic activity and a picture of perfect serenity. When you are sitting by yourself in such a setting, its difficult not to relax. As the breeze blows I see this pretty lady in a miniskirt that is too short to keep the chill out but is of the right length to warm me up (without the need of a jacket). And then some more pretty girls (who need jogging just as much as a fish needs a mobike) jogging by in their designer jogging suits. Nice. Just cross the street from Ghirardelli Square and there you are right on this waterfront. I guess the city civic officials try hard to maintain such pockets of sanity intact. Full marks to them.

Discovering such spots that isolate you from the hustle and bustle of the city and providing a moment of peace is enough to make such long travels worthwhile. Thus said Confucius.

Dis-CERN-ing Universe

Finally, 20 years of hard work of Physicists and Nuclear Scientiests from all over the world will see the light of the day at the CERN (in English, it translates to European Organization for Nuclear Research). They have come up with this mother of all accelerators called the LHC or in their terms the Large Hadron Collider to conduct the mother of all experiments. Not that I am a theoretical Physicist or even vaguely connected to anything nuclear (or nukular as some like to call it) but then I put my finger into everything that’s not my business. What the heck! So long as nobody’s complaining, I wouldn’t worry too much.

So they end up building this large circular tube like gizmo called the accelerator which has a few kilometers radius and spans across two countries (France and Switzerland). And now on September 10, 2008 they are going to conduct the first of a series of experiments to discover what happened at the Big Bang (or the creation of the universe). By “they” I mean a bunch of bright Physicists from all over the world and mainly from Europe. Sorry, I tend to be vague sometimes. I am sure that this LHC is one heck of a boy’s toy. Nice. Let’s hope they come up with some great results too that would end up re-writing our Physics textbooks. Its darned boring to read the same stuff over and over again.

What also interests me is the data they are going to come up with and how they are going to sift through it. Seems one single experiment will end up generating a lot of data. And then some. By a lot, I don’t mean that it will fill a few pages of a Lab Book or a few Lab Books but enough to fill around 100,000 DVDs. So the Scientists are going to use “Grid Computing” or Distributed computing to analyse this data. I first heard of this at a conference last year where HP showcased their servers some of which are installed at CERN. Once the experiment is completed, the data will be distributed across different computers across the world and each one will analyze a fragment of this data and send it back to the central computer at CERN. I can’t imagine how they can come up with such kind of ideas. But it does sound real cool. CERN has been nice enough to put much of this stuff on their website (http://cern.ch). So for some days to come, I am going to keenly follow what’s gonna happen. So while I am still trying to figure out why the sky is blue, Scientists have gone ahead figuring out how the sky and earth were created or what elements created them. Needless to say, we live in interesting times.

Fighting the Su-do-ku Mafia

A group of my friends are good at Su-do-ku. I call them the Su-do-ku mafia. They solve the online su-do-ku at http://www.websudoku.com (category: hard) in under 4 minutes (the average time taken by users is under 5 minutes from the stats shown). The average time for me is around 20 minutes with a record of 13:54. So when I talk about my times with this mafia, I get a lot of faces that seem to say, “peasant!”. Well, all brains are not alike. And I am still trying to work on my times. Brain-training as per Nintendo DS is a long time-consuming process and takes time. Earlier on, when I started on sudoku, I used to have a heavily scratched sudoku sheet in the daily newspaper because one way or the other I used to skew up the grid by filling it up with completely wrong sequence of digits. I guess my logical brain is not as developed as Einstein’s but so long as I can add digits when I go to the supermarket, I’m fine with it. Speaking of which, I have noticed that I can add numbers faster in my head now than before. I surprised a grocer by adding more than 10 lines from item price-list (which included weird change amounts) in head faster than his calculator. Nice. Perhaps, Sudoku has helped in other ways. Hope I get to improve my times and surprise my friends too.

And its not over yet. After that, its the Rubik’s cube for me. And there’s a story behind why it will be Rubik’s cube next. I was once waiting for a flight in the airport when I saw this kid around 10-12 years old who was tossing around the Rubik’s cube as if it was some sort of a toy he had become long tired of. His Dad who was sitting beside me took the cube mixed it up for almost a minute and handed it back to the kid. The little whizkid took a look at it and solved the cube in 3 minutes flat! Cool! It should not be that difficult if a kid can solve it. I will too. Someday. But first let me beat the su-do-ku mafia.

Creativity or the lack of it.

As I keep going through some blogs on the net, I am amazed by the amount of creativity they contain. And they show how much creativity mine lacks. Its a revelation. I always try to post something that sounds interesting. Unfortunately, I never complete it because I run out of ideas the moment I type, "It was a dark and stormy night." I never go past that line. Must be something to do with the so called "writer's block". Or it could be that creativity is the domain of a select few and I don't belong to that club.

So I decided to abandon blogging and pick up writing (that way I can keep myself busy and be off blogging for a long time). I keep reading about so many people who quit their cushy jobs and then wrote a book which eventually became a NY Times bestseller (raking millions for the author in the process) that I am frequently tempted to follow the road taken by them. So far, better reason has prevailed and I am still sticking to my job which is the sole source of my bread and butter (and jam). But then I couldn't resist googling "How to write a book?". Result? You guessed it right. I come up with so many hits that I could easily write a book about it. But some people have already beaten me to it and come up in the search hits. There are books which teach you how to write. There are workshops that teach you how to write. There are tips given by other authors on how to write fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction, etc. And then there are podcasts. Whew! The information is overwhelming. I guess that there are so many souls out there who want to write or want to teach someone how to write that I can say for sure that there won't be a library in the world that could store all those books. Which is good. Books are always good. But now the challenge is to find a good site. I have been sifting through some and it will take some time before I can even go through at least 1% of them. I might as well write a book first. There's something even on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y99p13p6hvE).

I will go through these sites and see what works for me best. Lezzee. So for now, I am planning to do my homework about writing. And then I will write. Till that time, I blog. Ah! for the want of creativity. Ciao.

A Dip In Merc-curious Rising

Whenever celebrities are interviewed and are asked about their secret of success, there is almost always a stock answer. "Dream big" and "hard work". These terms are no longer secrets for someone's success. You can use "Dream big" and "hard work" to safely summarize an entire content of a famous person's 1000-page bio or autobiography without even reading a single page. Yet, both these terms are as elusive as they come and are still the privilege of a select few.

In my case, my idea of being big was to own a Merc (a CLS to be precise) by the time I knew how to drive a car. Yea, I am quite a material guy. Yet I am still searching for that elusive Merc (just as the Spanish conquistadors searched for the El Dorado) though its been some years since I learnt to drive. So I started looking back to analyze on what went wrong. A sort of a reality check on why I still can't afford a Merc. One thing sure did stand out. I could never accuse myself of not dreaming big. I was dreaming big while I was supposed to be studying. I was dreaming big when I was supposed to go out and play. Whenever I picked up a textbook, I would doze off like a granny counting on her rosary beads. I preferred to stay inside rather than play ball with other kids. Caught napping was a term that was associated with me like swimming is now associated with Michael Phelps. So in a way I was dreaming big uh.. big time rather. And I dreamt about Mercs too which is definitely a "dream big" thing. Goes without saying that "dream big" part did happen in my life.

So that brings up the question again. Why don't I still have a Merc? My investigations continue. The next thing in my list is "hard work". Now, if you ask me, hard work is a relative term. Some guys can just go on working for 15 hours straight and still look fresh as a daisy. Workaholics! For some, a 2-hour paper-pushing job exhausts them to an extent that you get the feeling that they have been working beyond all human endurance levels. I fall somewhere in-between. Around say, 8-9 hours? I haven't tested myself beyond that. For me that's productive hard work. So looking at where I am today, I think that in-between thing is what is keeping me in-between. Neither a spectacular success nor a spectacular failure. Just a normal average VJ. So I guess I'll still have to wait for that Merc. That wasn't hard. A normal average VJ. Honestly, it is a hard truth to digest. A normal average VJ :-( . Even after popping half-a-dozen antacid pills and downing an alka-seltzer bottle. Normal and average. It would sound real good if I were are celebrity and when interviewed, I'd say, "beneath this famous exterior personality lies just a normal average VJ. A guy-next-door VJ." Dream on. Sigh! For now the spartan Suzuki will do.

Going Green..

Olympics 2008 has started. And the Chinese authorities had been doing their best to make Beijing cleaner. Some of their moves to clean up the city have been really cool. But I don't know how the people of Beijing are taking it.

Looking at the way my city has grown in the past decade-and-a-half (its no Beijing but its surely been growing), and the problems its started to have, its amazing to even to think that its the same sleepy town it used to be when we had first set foot here. The wheels of development can surely move fast if people take the right initiatives and implement them. Anyways, since now I call it my home, I have decided to give something back to help my city in my own small way. So I have decided to go green to some extent. Its been some years since I had cut down on commuting by vehicle. I walk down (though the pedestrian walks are almost non-existent) to nearby stores. I wish the city civic authorities make the city more pedestrian friendly. No more plastic bags for me as far as possible. And of course, water. The city had a severe water shortage sometime back. Its taught me a valuable lesson in conserving water. I will never forget that lesson.

I had read somewhere that to save an email it takes around 20 tonnes of coal (no kidding!). So while I was backing up my system, I deleted a whole bunch of .pst files which contained some pleasant and unpleasant memories (I'm sure I wouldn't have read those emails again anyways). I have also cut down on my time in front of the computer and TV to save a few kilowatts of power. And from now on, will try to keep my posts small too. Slowly but surely, these are small but significant changes coming into my lifestyle. Its tough but I'm hanging in there. And if it can save a few trees and keep the air clean then I guess its the least I can do. I wish more people from the community start doing their bit too. Good for the city and good for the planet. Just like the Olympics.