The world is flat!!

I am pretty sure many of you may have heard of this book written by Thomas L Friedman. It is book that talks about globalization to great depths, talking about the way business is done by big companies like ebay,walmart,Dell,HP,UPS,Google,Microsoft. It also studies the way many Indian based IT companies like Infosys,Wipro,Mindtree and even small firms like Jadoo works thrive in the flat world. No wonder the book is 570 pages fat excluding the appendix. The size of the book and given the fact that it is a business book may make one think it would be a dull read. But let me tell you with utmost urge that it is not. Friedman has managed to collect facts and present it in the most interesting and gripping manner.

So after couching myself on the sofa for many nights (I am a very slow reader) would I agree whether the world is really flat!! YES it is and I am sure many of my friends would second me without even having to read the book.

Let me explain you how by taking my own life as example. I was born in a small town in Karnataka, India named Chitradurga. I was bought up in Bhadravathi a small steel town in the same state. Studied in a convent school till my tenth. Then moved to the district headquarters to do my pre university in science. Then I was lucky to get a seat in the famous National institute of enginnering, Mysore. This is the same college where co-founder and chief mentor of Infosys, N R Narayanmurthy graduated. Well definitely the WORLD was not flat for me till then.

But then before I entered the final year of my graduation in IT I was recruited by Infosys. That is when I began to see the world. I was trained and later given the confidence to use my engineering skills to build and support applications for clients I had never heard of. The clients were fortune 500 companies and their profits let alone revenues was in billions of dollars.

As my experience grew I was given more responsibilites and the chance to travel to London for one such assignment. Now as many know that British ruled India for more than a century. Many Indians fought and lost lives to make the country free. They looted India of its valuable resources and used bipartisanship as a key approach to rule India. But when it went to extremes India united and fought against the british empire and got the nation free on aug 15, 1947. One thing India benefited by the ruling was the language that the britishers bought. It is the very language I use to exchange my ideas and opinions with clients around the world. Now, here I was using my technical skills doing business with people who treated us like slaves just over 50 years ago.

But in this flat world nobody is your enemy. Everyone is a potential collobarator as the book clearly states time and again. In my current assignment at Melbourne, Australia I am working in a truly multi cultural and geologically diverse team. My team comprises of myself, an Armenian, a Vietnamese and many Australians. I have been deputed/seconded from an Indian based company Infosys technologies Ltd to its subsidiary Infosys Australia. We all work together for supporting business in South Africa. The client is of a british based company. I see the world being flat day in and out. People dial in from cape town,Singapore and Melbourne on every call. We all collaborate with our different accents and sometimes make fun of each others culture at lunch. But we are all players in our own sense in this huge flat world.

The book many a times warns the Americans to wake up before the developing countries like India and China dominate them. One funny quote I would like to pick from the book. Earlier American parents told their kids to finish up the dishes as many kids starve for the same food in India. Now they urge their kids to do the homework else some Indian kid will take his/her job. Indian companies have been able to make profits and grown in huge stature by tagging along with the American companies. Now it is time to move the wheel by a notch. In fact many companies have already started doing that. We have to think ahead into the future. The flat world has given everyone the same opportunity. Notable tool being Internet. We have to make use of this and change the way things happen. We have to start making use of right imaginative brain more and in tandem with our left logical brain. As many famous thinkers have said when a company starts thinking of its memories instead of dreaming it ceases to grow. So instead of being happy and contended with what we have phenomenally achieved we should dream the next big thing and strive to make it a reality. So listen to the famous Aerosmith song “Dream On” on the American [designed in America but made in china] ipod and use your Indian brains to achieve it.

Chetan Bhagat's latest novel!!!

yes you read it right, Chetan bhagat has returned with a new novel. it is titled "The 3 Mistakes of my life" being released on May 8. i am pretty excited about it. will definitely read it as soon as i am able to lay my hands on it. You will find more details about the book here. and by the way his second novel is being made into a movie.

first impression, as also indicated by the cover page is it involves cricket as well. but if i were to write a book the number indicating the mistakes would definitely be a lot higher than on the cover page.

Till my return to india ( which is only when i will be able to read his new book ) i will quench my thirst by re reading his first ( and my most favourite ) book "Five point some one-what not to do at IIT." his second book is titled "one night at the call cener".

let me know which of the first two is your favourite in the comments below. and if you have not read neither, man what have you been busy with till now!!

Venture into the Unknown

Before I begin on the topic I have to apologize for not having blogged this long. Sorry. Don’t expect this to be worth the wait or anything. It hopefully lives to the poor standards of my other posts.

I am sure when people visit different countries for whatever reasons, visiting or work, they see and learn many things. Different people,Culture and place being the obvious ones. I am not going to speak about them. I want to ponder on what changes I discovered in myself. Don’t expect me to say that I have got fit like the many Australians here, but it is my cooking skills. Yes I have started spending more time in the kitchen.Wielding knives, with tears in my eyes i fight many battles with onions. Never in my dreams did I see that I will be cutting vegetables, pouring oil and all the crazy ingredients to prepare my food. But the truth is I have.

In India I and my friends had our own cook who used to come thrice a day to prepare our food and serve it hot at the right time. The only reason I used to switch on the gas stove was for my appetite of coffee at odd hours. Now I rely on the machines for that.
Over here things are a lot different. In my earlier apartment I used to cook food with my friends, discuss the office work and my client with them when cutting vegetables and occasionally slice my own fingers. Now after having moved into a separate apartment I have to handle everything on my own, till my friend joins me after his Indian vacation.

Initially I didn’t like it. Returning home after a tiring day at office you don’t want to wet your hands in doing the cooking chores. But I am surprised to realize that I have started to like it. I wouldn’t dare say that I am ready to serve my food to Gordon ramsay (fame of Kitchen Knightmares and his trademark swearing) and have restricted myself and my friends to be the only rabbits of my kitchen.

I am keen on showing my cookery skills to my family when I return to India. My parents will not be that lucky to wait till then as they will be visiting me here in couple of month’s time. So I am hoping my mom will be able to share a lot of her secrets and hone my skills, before I torture my cousins and others back home.

This part of the house was surely unknown to me until now.So i thought i will pen down history being made in my life that is :). I am curious to know how my friends who are staying away from their parents are coping with their own battles at kitchen, specially boys. Does the onion win or you have the last laugh? So please do share your thoughts,experiences and maybe even recipes in comments below.

Australian Open - New year started lucky

New year started lucky for me. When i received a mail from Tania throwing open 6 corporate gold tickets i had no idea i will win one. all one had to do was open up a spreadsheet filled with figures of my client's performance and zoom in on the required figure and click the appropriate voting button in the mail. so i did, least expecting i will be a winner. after all it was a question to be answered easily. but i got lucky and got the tickets for 15th of jan 2008.

i was thinking of buying tickets and watching the game anyways. but i guess i can put the dollars for better use now ;). the ticket not only offered one of the best seats at center court (rod laver arena) but also free dinner at skyline dining room and free booze.

Few mails on getting there and also a mail on the dress code (damn you executives) were exchanged before we got there. Angela was kind enough to give me a lift to the court. but the two other men who had won the tickets had other plans. so it was going to be me and five other gorgeous ladies ( gorgeous..hmmm.. more by attitude than looks..)

When i entered the dining room with angela and julie we found tania, jad and paula already seated and sipping on red wine. i was more used to beer than wine and so ordered hieneken. after chatting with the ladies for more than 2 hours at the table ( i am more mature now :) ) and gulping in two beers ( wanted to go for more ) we left for the arena.

the first match was between venus williams and.. i didnt even bother to know the other player's name. the game was already in progress and venus won the game in straight sets. but i was more excited about the second match more than the first. Men would watch women's tennis for a reason (..you know what..) more than the game itself.

and so i was ready with the camera and there came roger federer.. man who has won 13 grand slams, 3 short of setting a world record. the court filled with applause and it was really exciting to watch him play live and real. he won the game in straight sets without even sweating much.

it was nice to see the blue plexicushioned surface and having watched two great players games i felt more than satisfied and felt good as i had missed to visit wimbledon when i was at london before.

calling it a night to cherish for more than one reason i walked back to my apartment and bragged a little to my friends who by then had bet 160 dollars on india losing the third test match versus australia. they wanted to be happy at the end of test match. if india won they will be happy for an occurence which is rare to witness. if they lost they will be happy for the money they will make. if they drew the test..well then its money gone for toss.

you can click through the snaps below. enjoy!!

Australian Open

Australian cricket team equaled the world record??

Australia equaled 16th consecutive test match wins set by Steve waugh's team today. They defeated india in the second test match in the bordar-gavaskar trophy. But their win was not convincing and raised a lot of questions in my mind on the ethical behavior of the australian players.

Rahul dravid and Ganguly's wicket were clearly not out and the entire test match was a scene of foolish decisions made by the umpires which played significant role in their win. How much ever stressed or difficult it may be for the umpires to make decisions on the field they always have the choice of referring to the third umpire. But they continued to raise their fingers towards the sky again and again when not required.

I believe that the ICC should start thinking of imposing regulations on successive bad decisions of the umpires. I would also suggest giving limited chances of power to the players to bring in the third umpire and question the field umpires decisions, just the way it is in tennis.

By the replays it was also obvious that adam gilchrist and mathew clarke clearly had seen that they did not have wickets. but guess they were overcome by the greed to continue their winning streak and create a world record entering their names in the history books.

Like many games, cricket is also not a fool proof game but with so much of money being invested in the game and so much of high profile coverages being made guess the rules of the game has to be amended to make use of the technology used in the coverage. it will then be only the quality of the teams that will drive the outcome of the match and not bad decisions of umpires.

some articles which reveal the details more clearly
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329392.html
and more
http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329405.html

MCG - Boxing Day Test match

Christmas celebration was just over and Boxing day lurked round the corner. me and my friends had booked tickets for the first day of the first test match between india and australia. Andrew symonds was exposed to some bad (surprisingly named racists) remarks and taunts by the indian crowd and equally supportive australian fans were expected to return the taunts with interest. so i was excited about the match even though i would rate myself really poor fan of the game, specially being from india where it is a religion and sachin is the god.

Melbourne cricket ground home of Melbourne cricket club is world famous. many memorable matches other than cricket have been played on the very same ground. the Austraian Football League finals is also played here. it is REALLY a huge ground and also holds the record for the maximum number of light towers (six) on any sporting avenue.

we got up early (by weekend standards) and after having the same quick breakfast of corn flakes headed out to the stadium. it is at a walkable distance from our apartment and the weather didnt appear bad either for a good walk. No sooner than we crossed the yarra river we could see australian fans pouring in at the stadium with their flag on their backs. we had thought of buying indian flags at the merchandise shop in the stadium but the patriotic australians (poor marketing skills) had nothing remotely indian at that shop.

The stadium can be seen amidst the skyscrapers of melbourne and looks really magnificient even from a mile away. no sooner did we enter the stadium we could see handful of players from both teams practising at the nets. i saw Dravid for the first time in real life practising his famous straight drive.

we knew it would be crowded and so walked in to know where we were to seat. the stadium looked even more wonderful inside than from outside. with lucious green grass trimmed perfectly it looked welcoming to the eyes. but today a battle was about to be fought and it would be gladiators in there who will be fighting for their country and fame if not for life. it was empty when we took our seats but later aussie families covered us from all sides. though i would have liked to be seated with indian fans i had no complaints whatsoever when the aussie girls were so beautiful in the front row.

the coin was tossed and australia won it, deciding to bat first. we were a little disappointed even though we get to see all indian players at once if india fielded. But indian bowlers are not as good as the the indian batting line up and it was saddening that we will not be getting to see the maestro strike boundaries of brett lee's bowling.

the first half was boring and the sun scorching in all its fury. my jeans was burning and it was hotter in the ground than the weather department had predicted. we could not sit any longer and the sadder part is that niky had booked our seats in the dry area (damnit). so we had to walk out to grab a beer and discussed india's poor bowling attack and the hot sun burning us.

till lunch we had got ourselves burnt under the sun and the indian team was not having any luck on the field as well. i was even wondering to walk back home to watch it in the comforts of home. but what happened post lunch made the day fruitful than we wanted. india struck with the first wicket and then the mighty australians were humbled by anil kumble's bowling attack. even the shade fell on our heads and we started enjoying the match. indian players gave us plenty of opportunities to cheer and scream at the top of our voices and it felt so good doing this in a foreign land.

the australian supporters had their own way of entertainment. they would start mexican waves even though it was banned and the commentators kept warning that initiators will be thrown out of the field. in addition to that big plastic balls were tossed around and the security guys had a tough time grabbing them from the spectators. i also got a chance to punch one of the many balls tossed around. some of them even made it to the ground. if this was not enough two drunk australian fans ran madly on the ground. the first one didnt make it too far but the second one bisected through the pitch and was later overpowered by the police. the penalty for that short life of fame and madness is 6000 dollars.

once indians got six wickets we thought it was worth the effort of coming to the stadium and getting burnt in the sun. but indian bowlers kept getting more wickets and we got more hungrier. at the end of day inidan team had got 9 wickets.

as we walked back we again got to see dravid practising (man he works hard) with robing singh bowling in the nets. all of us stopped to see this at an even closer view. the australian supporters also were there and they were sledging even worse than the australian team players. Dravid kept smiling and kept practising. when we decided to leave i shouted all the best dravid and walked back. Santy mentioned i should have told that in my native language as dravid and i were from the same indian state, Karnataka. i thought that was a good idea but just hoped that dravid performs well the next day to shatter the words of australian supporters.

we had quick showers at the apartment and then left for the boxing day shopping spree hoping to buy any remaining stocks. the eventful day had come to a close and i only wished indian team lived to the expectations of their fans.

MCGBoxingDayTestMatchIndiaVsAustralia

www - image of your life

Internet has so become an integral part of our lives. It caters to all our needs from educating us to entertaining us, from helping us to flirt with known/unknown people to staying in touch with our parents (if you are abroad). I seriously feel that by studying the websites frequented by an individual one can understand his personality to a certain extent.

my friend niky is such a big fan of cricket that he never misses to open cricinfo every day. he can follow entire match not just T20, not just one day matches but test matches from the first ball to the last on this site. he has read and re read every article on the site and never ceases to discuss them. That rules out one site i need not visit often as i can get a gist of everything on the site from him during cooking. similary i don't miss to narrate on some cool add-on that i came across or some cool method of cutting vegetables that i saw on youtube. (yeah these days i am googling on cooking skills as well).

my point is by observing the sites (other than mail severs like gmail,yahoomail,etc etc) frequented by an individual we can pretty much guess what he wants to become. of course we will not be able to say what does he not want to become.

if a guy visits
technical sites - we can gauge that he is interested in technology but not that is bad in any specific technology.
visiting youtube or videos.google.com - we can say that the individual is interested in music,trailers,cool videos and some other stuff which i cannot mention.
financial sites - the guy wants to make his money earn more money.
google.com - need not say anything.
news - yearns to know more on whats happening
wikipedia - wants to add more info or research more.

Below are the sites which i frequent every day.
igoogle.com - my personalized google page.
google.com/reader - to read the subscribed feeds. i never miss to read feeds from lifehacker,bbc.co.uk/click, msdn.
gmail - to obviously check mails and also to chat with friends
cnn-ibn site - only lately as i dont have access to indian news channels on tv and indian newspapers.
orkut.com - to stay in touch with my friends with whom i cannot chat
youtube.com - view great videos.

so what can you gauge of my personality by knowing the sites i frequent? leave your answers in comments. also mention the sites you frequent day in and day out and i will let you know what i think about your personality. This will also help you share your favourite sites with others.

stay connected.. stay online.

Great Ocean Road

weekend number 11 and still i had not seen the most beautiful place in the state of victoria or maybe even in the whole of australia. so it was high time that i must be visiting this place. the wait was for the right initiation.
my friend venkat was returning back to india after his long stay at melbourne and somehow he had missed visiting this place.. that is until now.. so we grabbed on this chance..
the gang was made up of venkat,santy and myself from 3J; ramjee (sunil), srini and praveen from 6W and sandeep. sandeep had been there before and knew the right places to pitstop. he was also a great driver and enjoyed it. so we booked a toyota tarago which would be tested by sandeep's driving skills and our messing around.

the gang: (from top) venkat,santy,srini,sandy,ramjee,me

nobody minded to get up early on saturday morning..but we boys never make it on time.. whether its meeting a girl on a date or getting up for a trip.. so even though we had planned to leave at 7:30 it was 9 by the time we were belted in the toyota seats.
we had charged up our camera batteries formatted the memory cards and updated our ipods for the 3.5 hour journey from melbourne to the apostles.
even though i was the only one from karnataka in the gang (the others were from Andhra) time in the vehicle was not really boring. we managed to crack jokes on each other.. feed fruits, snacks and coke to our ever growing bellies and listen to favourite songs on ipod. so it was not long before sandy stopped at the first place. we were really amazed by the scene beholding us. mild waves, virgin beach and surprisingly no one else on the beach other than a few surfers. after a few shots for matrimony sites ;) we started playing the favourite winter sport of australia the australian footy. we tried a few kicks and catches at the weird shaped ball and managed to kick it into the ocean a couple of times as well.. but it always managed to come back to us like a favourite dog.. wish girls were like that as well in life ;).

first stop

we unwillingly got back into the toyota with sandy promising more beautiful places ahead. so it was more PJ's,music and feeding again...
next stop was the devil's elbow. its along the road and a very picturesque scenes of the waves dying silently along the road side. we took some snaps and hopped in again for our journey ahead.

devil's elbow

next stop was apollo bay, a small coastal town. since the snacks were doing no good we pulled over here for some burgers and cappuccino.
our next stop was the port campbell national park. 12 (well actually 5 now) apostles is its famous attraction. the best part was the helicopter ride. for 80 AUD for 10 mins you can hitch a ride with a pilot and get the spell bouding views of the apostles. the pilot even explains some of the features of the apostles but who will be willing to listen when there is such a beauty in front of your eyes. it was nature at its best and really amazing. i was so happy to be seeing this in my lifetime and kept saying to myself i am gonna get my parents here as well..

the helicopter ride

after the chopper ride we thought of viewing them with a closer proximity so walked along the pathways to get some better matrimony shots :)

12 apostles

London bridge (now london arch) is one of the attractions. they were formed and now being eroded by the waves. it become so weak because of the erosion that the bridge broke away leaving two tourists stranded who were to be rescued using helicopters.
After that we moved on to Loch Ard Gorge. oh... what a place that was.. not just because of what it is now.. but even because of the history. a ship by name loch ard crashed at this very spot and around 50 people aboard were killed. only two survivors were washed away into this gorge and found shelter over there. it is a great example of nature at work. it is like natures workshop or laboratory where every strike of wave is leaving its mark on the gorge. i was truly amazed by its beauty and spent some time over there.

Loch ard gorge

Getting down the human made stairs takes you to the beach where the waves lash with all its fury. it appears like white racing horses running towards the shore with full speed. oh what a sight it was. we managed to reach there at the sunset time and i just sat the edge of the cliff watching the white waves lash. the sound was amazing and the scene like that of heaven.

the virgin beach

we then tried to get some great shots of the waves lashing the cliff and us standing in the front on the cliff. some came good but most of them were a failure.. common we are amateurs.. it was dark then.. and as the sun set we started returning talking excitedly of the great day and some wonderful things we had seen that day. the return journey was silent.. most of us slept.. thankfully sandy ( who was driving the vehicle did not).
all in all one amazing trip i will cherish forever in my life for more than one reason.

below is the clip of a beautiful song shot at the apostles. its from the movie "dil hi dil mein".


if your appetite is still not quenched then go ahead and view this album..
Great Ocean Road

something is cooking...

guys.. seriously please dont bother to spend more time reading this post.. this is seriously from a testing point of view.. if it clicks.. i will surely let you know the result of it.. :)

orkut - boon or bane

Recently my company infosys technologies Ltd, Mangalore conducted a contest inviting write ups and other creative art work from its employees. i had come to realise the importance of orkut as it was one of the sites i daily visited to keep in touch with my friends. surprisingly it not only won the early bird prize but also third place in best articles section. so guys it is time for me to confidently torture you all and also eat up some time of yours. please read on.... :)

http://www.orkut.com would be one among the top five addresses that any person glued to the web will key in any browsers address bar. Or if he is like me, he will have the address stored in his favourites. So what is so special about this site that makes everyone visit it.

If one google’s for “Social community sites” without quotes it returns 164,000,000 search results in its traditional lightning speed and you will be surprised that orkut is not in the first page of the search results, well not in the unsponsored links atleast. It is second in the list of sponsored links. Inspite of this it will have “name any” friend of yours or long lost school buddy or school crush and there is a high chance that your search will end in orkut. Orkut was conceptualized and developed by Orkut Buyukkokten and was aptly named after him. He did this in the 20% time he spent at google every day of the week. Google has this concept of every resource spending his 20% time on the thing that he wants to develop. Orkut - the person wanted to develop a social community site and so was the birth of Orkut - the site. Initially google employees were asked to open their profiles and the number of registered users kept on growing and there was no looking back.

The reason orkut has grown so much is because it is more than just a social community site. Apart from just being a repository of your friends it has many communities ranging from serious politics to the daily soap opera (K syndrome) on the television. You can not only join one of these communities but start one of your own and moderate it. Recently my friend mentioned that he has been looking for tintin comic book on the web with no luck. I asked him to check out in orkut as there sure would be a community dedicated to the famous cartoon character. He found not only the community but also the e version of comic book in minutes.

Apart from sharing your favorite snap, blog, favorite videos (basically yourself) you can discuss various things through postings in communities. In fact my communities in orkut ranges from Algorithms, Donald E knuth to Little Johnny jokes and I have gained knowledge from both sides of the range. I and my roomies even have a community dedicated to the apartment in Melbourne we are staying in so that all the ex and current roomies can stay in touch and share their moments. All in all orkut is both for easy going folks and for people with a purpose. And it’s great that one can find both at a single site.

Recently people have started using orkut even for commercial purposes. Whether you want to advertise your apartment or want to sell something. It is gaining popularity as an e-commerce site. In fact I got two replies for my posting when I wanted to find an accommodation in Melbourne before my travel.

There are of course instances of misuse of orkut. People have met the wrong person on orkut and taken that too far. But out of every power that is bestowed to mankind there comes the responsibility and the caution with which that power has to be used. Same is the case with orkut. World Wide Web was developed to make information available from anywhere to anyone. But now we have hackers, black/white and of various other colors. So every pro comes with a con. It is left to the users on how they want to look at things and use it.

With 128 friends I am connected to 67,159,231 people through orkut. There is no second thought that orkut has been definitely a boon to me and in general to the mankind. So do me and probably yourself a favor. Join orkut and add me as a friend if you have not. Happy orkuting