Saturday, December 26, 2009

100% Natural

I have been in Karnataka for the past six months but it was just two weeks ago that i got the chance to explore this magnificent state. Having been in several uninteresting trips in other states of India, we had a ZERO expectation from this tour; that was the only disappointment for me in the entire tour.

“ The command that nature has over our heart is surprising, two completely contradicting forces created ; The calmness pervading in nature can be matched only by the turbulence pervading in our hearts ”

Two days of nature in December’s cold climate is a treat for everyone. My fruit of the basket would be Talacauvery and Madikeri. The beauty of the Coorg mountain was enhanced by the colorful girls who played and danced in the streams and dew-filled green meadows. The Talacavery is exceptionally beautiful in the early mornings as we get to see the revelry of the mist. In a couple of minutes, the mist brings about so many visionary changes to the landscape that it delights photographers and others equally. It covers all god’s creations with a translucent white blanket and even the most clouded of hearts obtains clarity for a couple of moments. As the mist fades from view, it regains form in our hearts allowing us to continue our mindless struggle

I shouldn’t forget the most sarcastically impressive place in the trip – Nagerhole National Park. No regrets on not being able to see many wild animals as we got to see a lot of domesticated wild animals( oxymoron is a must here). We got  to see a overly civilized kind of deer (breed i am unfamiliar with + photo added) which would eat chips and bajjis but wouldn’t accept grass or straw. There were other relatively wild deers and shy elephants that we encountered in our safari trip. They claim that there are panthers there and as i heard the standard answer as to when they saw them was 3 days ago.

Overall this trip was excellent and is a must go for everyone who has a weekend and a 1500 rupees to spare. I hope our guide is the permanent guide of this trip as he had a soothing voice and an amazing vocabulary of some language he spoke ( I think he mentioned Welcome and Ladies and Gentlemen somewhere in his loquacious speech)

Trip Details

 

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Dreams on fire 24x7

There is a stark difference in me in the past few months. I cannot discern what the change is but i can feel it within me. I feel that i have to delve deeper into myself so that i can find out the reason.

I stood thinking for a while and then stopped standing and took a seat. After some time , I felt sitting doesn’t stimulate my brain and took out my headsets and put some Hip-hop music(don remember the name) and lying down started to think about this topic at hand. I thought about it for a maximum of two seconds and switched my brain on to several other topics that usually fill up any youth. Thinking on such lines, I started delving deeper into the realms that i didn’t want to permeate but was forced to as i fell deeper into it.

Jerking off, I again steadied myself and called on to say that i had a task at hand and shouldn’t stop at any chance. I started thinking about the topic of the change and the dreams started off once again. There she was standing , in a pleasant day with sunshine pouring over her. Yes, Indeed, she was a splendid sight. Dressed in Orange and Black, there she stood ready to go. I felt that i was the luckiest man on the world for getting her. I mean how many people dream about her every day and night but here i was holding my palms over her.

It was exactly three months since i met her and decided at that moment she was mine to take home. However, she was adamant on staying there for a few more days before coming with me. I just love my new bike Apache RTR FI 160.

I bought the bike three months ago . I decided on my first try itself that she was perfect for me and was what i wanted. I had to consider the fact that i had to shell out 70K for this beauty, but who would go for the beast when you had such a beauty. I bought it 2 days later and after another couple of days, she was officially mine(registered in my name). I have already crossed the 1800km mark and she was been relentless in her delivery till date( lets keep our fingers crossed).

I have this peculiar habit that whenever i have a experience, i like to share it with the sea. As it is generally possible due to proximity of the sea from my house, I took her for a spin and showed her off to the envious public. I took her down the ECR and completely forgot about the rest of the world . At that moment, it was only me and her. I was in cloud 9. This feeling of ecstasy was short-lived as i had to come back by an hour.

On a fine tuesday morning , I lay fidgeting in my bed thinking of what kind of atrocities they were committing against her. Powerful she was, yet beastly they were. I decided that the tension was too much to bear and called up the beasts on what was her status and they said she was finally there. Happy with the news, I took a bus to KPN Travels and awaited her arrival. On the back of the truck, I saw her tied and gagged up. Worrying about the safety of her vital parts, I checked her over. Happy with the results, I paid the guys for transportation from Chennai to Bangalore.

Her first service is over now and it would be due in a month for her second service. We have had a rollicking time till date. She is a wonderful social animal, I must accept. She creates the most wierdes

t situations for the owner. If some stranger approaches her, she knows that her owner will look after her and would sit smilingly and there would be one fuming owner censuring some poor chap who just came to have his hair duo checked. However, she completely believes her owner’s judgment and loves the people he does.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Big FIght IBM Google Cisco Microsoft

I had recently gone through some market studies that attest the dynamic nature of the markets. The World's premier organizations are groveling all over the floor in an attempt to dominate one another. One slip and we can say good bye to that company. Being in one of the companies, I can see the intense level of competition and the volatility of trust that exists between them

A wonder in all this is that it is still unbelievable that they co-exist in this turmoil. Apart from this regular feature, there are the recessions to also look out for. All companies invest into risk so that they obtain maximum dividends from it. There is a saying in Finance which goes " The more risk you are ready to take, the more money that you can earn" and we can see the the major organizations ready to invest greater percentages in risk . But before we take the literal meaning of risk, we got to understand that there is no risk that companies jump into the well without knowing its depth. The only concern that is present is whether they should or should not take these calculated risks. The benefits are innumerable but they do have their shortcomings. One major risk that had spurned this recent recession was the suprime crisis. Lets discuss that later on another post but coming back to our mainstay topic.

A typical example of such rivalry is between IBM,Google and Microsoft. Now, we have found that Cisco also wants to join this elite group with its new product WebEx Mail.It iss a hosted e-mail application that lets customers move from Microsoft Exchange but continue to access e-mail through an Outlook client if they desire. Enterprise Collaboration Platform is a hodgepodge of tools with which companies are already familiar, including team spaces and communities, profiles, a corporate directory, and social networking tools. Cisco also unveiled a Show and Share video app and a tagging solution called Pulse. This is coincidental to google's recent unvealing of Google Apps Sync which allows people to shift to Google Apps using either their own interface or that of Microsoft Outlook.

Cisco is pitting Enterprise Collaboration Platform as an alternative to IBM Lotus Connections and wiki platforms from MindTouch, Socialtext, Jive Software, Awareness and others that have similar tools. Show and Share has promise, given Cisco's enterprise video chops.Yet Google has Google Video for businesses, and MindTouch offers an extension to Kaltura to offer video for enterprises. Pulse is nice, but IBM Lotus Connections has offered its Dogear bookmarking tool for a few years now. According to Cisco, collaboration world has been focusing on documents and PCs within the confines of the company firewall. He argued that Cisco is bringing video collaboration not just to PCs, but to phones and mobile devices using telepresence between corporate firewalls.

So, while previously Cisco focused on letting employees within big businesses work together efficiently, Cisco is applying its network security provisions to its collaboration software to let colleagues, partners, suppliers and customers work together across their firewalls.This "intercompany collaboration" is the theme for Cisco's Collaboration tool. Pulse, he said, is a search app that analyzes network data in motion, looking at who is talking to whom to "learn the social graph" associated with corporate networks. Pulse, for example, indexes Web surfing behavior and YouTube videos and tags them based on social relevance. They can tag information and assign it social relevance based on the info flowing through the network, don't have to be in the application either on the server or on the client.

Fair enough. So how is Show and Share different? Cisco said the app was built with enterprise scale from the start.Unlike Google video for enterprise and others of its ilk, Show and Share is on-premises, not hosted. It also boasts several security permission levels, from department to workgroup to companywide.There is also one-click recording from telepresence solutions like Cisco WebEx Connect, Cisco's Flip consumer digital camera or smartphones. Users can create chapters or upload a transcript, making clips more production-ready.This makes editing much easier and is a departure from apps such as Adobe Premier. Finally, Show and Share can work with enterprise content distribution networks from Akamai.This means large businesses can push the video clip into a branch, so that when people press play, they can watch the video without impacting the wide area network because the clip is local.

Pulse and Show and Share sound like unique products, but they also seem as if they were meant to work together: social tagging with enterprise video. Pulse and Show and Share, while not currently interoperable in their first release, will be integrated to work together.

Consumers will eagerly wait as their choices are multiplying with newer technologies pouncing upon each other to gain the upper hand in the market. This is a good time for a company to invest in one of the products as all of them are eager to sell fast to prove their unquestionable dominance..

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..