Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Wall E - No more a dream

I read through an interesting blog today that shows how reality is shifting towards the fantasy that we have only fathomed through films and books. Well, This year's mega blockbuster animation film is definitely not only a fiction.

Check these links for more information:

Wall- E
Robo Fish

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Drive Bangalore Weekend What Masti?

Today was a no fun day as i was to be in office for support. I went to office as early as 10:30 and found the entire floor to be empty. Being a bit sad about the prospect of being alone in the entire floor, I switched on my music player and started listening to songs while the computer was booting. However, It still hasn't stopped playing. I saw my mails and found that there wasn't much for me to do today except being physically present till 7pm. I started whiling my time by going through social networking sites in succession and chatted with a few friends. However, time decided to slow down and i had no company after about 1pm. I kept saying "Madhavan, you can do it !! you can sit through like a vegetable through the day" and motivated myself for the inevitable. Five minutes had passed since then and i started playing with the sensor lights that illuminate our floor. IBM had devised sensors near the lights so that if there was no activity near them, they would switch off. These switches were effective and would switch off only when there was no activity in the cabin, thats the success scenario. However, when there was a less number of people in the office, the switches would automatically switch off since there wasn't enough activity; How much activity can a software guy do.. besides typing on the computer. All this took me to 2pm and that was when i decided that i wanted to go out.

I took my bike at 2 and started towards an unknown destination. I started off towards Murigeshpalya because it had less traffic in afternoons. The weather was good with the sunlight filtering through the clouds and descending on us mildly. Of course, i am used to Chennai and Madurai heat but I never enjoyed them really. I wasn't guided by anything other than instinct and took it straight to HAL. The road was simply awesome with trees enveloping either sides of the road. There wasn't much traffic and i was able to cruise without too many brakings till Marathalli. I didn't want to venture into Marathalli as i knew about the bad road there and traffic . I defintely wanted to move to outer ring road but was reluctant to do so because i had to be back at office. I returned through the same road ( A distance of some 35km was travelled on that road today) and wanted to check out a few more areas. My office, being in Domlur, I was familiar with the adjacent areas except proper Domlur layout. So, for the first time with a definite plan, I guided us to Domlur layout. It was a fine place to live in as there was all a bachelor would want adjacent to your home. Guessing the general direction of my office, I went that way and got into slums and all kind of roads thinking i was on the verge of discovering the shortcut. I definitely did find the shortcut , but not to Domlur but to MG Road. I saww the road just travelled and saw my speedometer. I was approximately 20km away from my office now and was deciding on what to say if my team lead had called. I came back to office in half an hour and came up to my seat. Seeing that no one had even tried to call me, I pondered whether it was time for lunch. Lunch and blogging, that brings me to this time.

I have to leave in 10 minutes after handoff to my US manager .After that, its Pizza Hut with the guys followed by events that i cannot predict.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Soul Stirrers Memory Unleashed

Music is a very powerful form of expression that has been around for several thousands of years but only for a few decades for me. I used to hear only Bhangras, Dabbankuttus and Hard Metal but recently about 5 years back, I heard a soft melodious song that transferred my liking completely. I heard the song on radio but couldn't catch the name of it.Iwould hum the tune from time to time just so that i wouldn't forget it. It took me a full year for me to find out the song;It was Addicted from Enrique Iglesius..

After that, my taste changed slowly and i incorporated more of soft music into my ipod. I began by becoming a follower of MLTR and Metallica. This change surprised me rather than simply accepting the fact that people change. I had seen people and their tastes change but I felt that this change was too drastic. I started pondering over this completely random thought and I remembered several people's opinions that buzzed through my mind that he had changed and is no longer the person he was or she was like this and like that before blah blah..... From this, I figured that people had a problem coping with change. Is it true that after a change everyone starts to alienate others who had liked the previous you. However, if you are able to delve deeper into the human psychology, you will be able to realize that it is completely natural for one to change.

"Behaviour Change is Permanant and transient at the same time".. Definitely for the simple fact that in order for a person to evolve or in simpler words to grow, he is expected to change. Now how can one say that change is transient; People tend to retain some of their dominant characteristics that make his character;these fundamental characteristics never change and still lie active generally,dormant in certain cases.I related my taste for the fairer kind of music( I call melodies as fairer kind since they are the more sensitive and touching) to be like one of the more transient forms of changes, the changes that change at regular intervals. I developed my taste over scores of compositions from Coldplay,Enrique,ARR,Yuvan, Roxette and Sting etc .

Now too, I listen to new kinds of music, whether it be Hip-hop or Alternate; but the trend is yet to shift. I still like to lie down on my cot , putting on some headphones and listen through the night to those lazy beats.

PS: Thats why my mobile and ipod are always short of charge... I tend to exhaust them often.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Google Knowledge Life Power

It has been only a couple of days, that too a weekend, since i came to office. Yet,It seems like an eternity. I was googling through some articles today and i came across an executive summary of Louis Gerstner's Who says Elephants cant dance? . I had recently heard about the book and wanting to know more about my company,i started off with this summary.

Reading through the pages, I was shocked to see how so less number of pages could hold such great a wisdom. I came to a conclusion from the script that people had been exaggerating a lot. I definitely do not mean Louis here but the people who claim Louis to be a god. Indeed he is one for resurrecting IBM but reading thorough his accounts , you come to a conclusion that he is more human than some of his compatriots and has also been bold enough to open up his fears, focuses and experience with everyone. That was not all that was revealed in this book, there was a deep secret that had been underlying beneath the printed alphabets . This secret known to few, was practiced unknowingly for centuries.

The secret though practiced was not written down to my knowledge... So,remember that you heard it here first.

History has a way of recording events , call it luck, call it chance or call it destiny; It has not always been the most powerful who has been the most successful, it is the lucky ones who have claimed destiny's cup of life... Why do you think monarchs of old used to record their events in stones and rocks. They wanted their records to be passed safely down the generations. It has always been known that knowledge is power .It could very well be that we are revering the world's biggest loser as the mightiest god of all. Chance and destiny allowed this person's events alone to pass the trial of time and reach his successors. We also know that history has a habit of re-inventing itself.The Hero whom you revere today can be dethroned tomorrow. It happens often too.History also metaphorically keeps correcting itself , but for all you know,it could keep getting it wrong.

I know you are all wondering how Louis Gerstner came into this picture. There is only one law and that is "He who makes others know that he knows is He". You could have the biggest gun in the world but unless you blurt it out, no one would know that.. Louis Gerstner was not the reason for the kings to record the events nor was it the reason for them to become a revered god, It was the ever consuming power of communication and chance that had brought them to this position. What i am trying to say is that, a simple human being can become a god if he has destiny written in him.Louis Gerstner may have made it big at IBM but thousands of years down the line, IBM could very well be misinterpreted to be a country or a culture (It is a culture) and although great people have slogged much harder than this fellow, he could very well be the revered one..

Another truly interesting class of people are the politicians. They are the people who effectively utilize the various forms of communications available. Whether it is the jan yatra or blogging, they do it for the people..Could this be the elusive quote Democracy,for the people.... Have you ever wondered why politicians never officially write down their political goals for a term.. By doing so, they commit themselves for it. Aren't we forced to read self-improvement books like Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective people. Shouldn't some of the training be provided to them prior to assuming such powerful influential roles. After all, the image of the country is in the hand of these few people . For this sake alone, I simply love the Jaago re ads . They might be using this sentiment selfishly to promote their product and i totally acknowledge it. Instead of using beautiful women to promote their product, using things which could educate the people is an avenue which is worth it. The Jaago re ads have created a stimulation (using this word coz it actually creates a stimulus whenever you see the ad) that has poked the guilty nerve of every Indian. The Politician ad is exceptionally good because of the powerful message it transmits. After all, nowadays politicians only come up onstage and talk about the positive things that have occurred during their term( adding the effects that would occur naturally.. like in 9 we have successfully reduced birth rate by 0.001% , he himself not contributing to it at all), demeaning the opposition and about what they would do the next term. Why not write it down somewhere official and have people feedback it during the course of their term. An official study can show the effectiveness of the politicians. There are so many management principles that HAD revolutionized the world, but somehow India remains non-aligned in that too . Their life happily spent on public money because their father was a national leader and as if they are worth it, they come up with a book of their life reiterating the facts that have made him a bodyless head.
Louis Gerstner, I salute you for spinning inside me such opinions that i thought i had never had before..Chow !!!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Madhavan R Sriram

I have developed a new fascination over my middle name.. I dont know why but ever since it appeared on my profile page at office, i got a fascination of using it as it is.. Well, now that i have cleared it to all that this is the same old Madhavan you know and this is a public blog, you can enter with all the calculated risk.. Well for the others, there isn much for me to say.. coz you are gonna understand how difficult and crappy my writing is..btw i have an aspiration of becoming a writer.. so if you like it please comment below so that i can mail you back saying you have excellent taste and will go a great way in life..I will be using these short forms as much as i can coz i hate the backspace key and a hundred other keys in the keyboard..but definitely the backspace is the worst... I mean,, who would like to take their smallest finger and cover the largest distance diagnolly across the keyboard so that you can not add but delete what you wanted to say !! God save the people... :)

Well thats my first blog entry in this new blog of mine and i just wanted to thank you for skipping this blog on the way to the next..
TC for now..