LOVE/HATE PENDULUM

Harish Bijoor told us about this concept......it does make sense, He says that a person moves from love to hate and vice versa and this happens not only towards products but also towards other people.....Even the love for the person you love most will eventually turn into hate...gradually and this does not happen overnight...rather happens over years...when it comes to love towards people it happens over decades and thus sometimes we live out our lives not being able to complete the entire pendulum.....difficult to explain the concept through words

Hmmmm

So many people running about doing so many important things.....but then how would one define important?? important for whom? if seen one from one direction everything is important....from another view nothing looks important. WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR???
looks like Im just blabbering but then I am not. Think about it.

MY GUIDING PRINCIPLE

Kisi Ki muskurahaton pe ho nissar
Kisi Ka dard mil sakey to ley utha
Kisi vaastey ho tere dil me pyar....
Jeena isi ka naam hai !!

Translate??
Sacrifice yourself for someones smile
lift away someones pain
love someone from deep within your heart
this is whats called LIFE.

Under Suspicion

A Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman movie with a sprinkling of Monica Belluci. What would have been a boring and bad movie is converted into a pretty decent one thanks to the treatment of the ending...The ending did not come as a surprise to me but nevertheless it was well thought out.

Dance Practice at the Leela Palace

If somebody would have told me a week ago that I would be practicing dance moves Bhangra Style at the leela palace....I would have laughed it off...But thats what I did !! Practiced dance with guys and gals from 5 different countries...It was fun, especially looking at the enthusiasm all these people had to do an Indian dance.

XP GAME

XP stands for Xtreme Programming.....this again is a method used at ThoughtWorks, to teach us the concepts behind the game...the presenter made it into a game where we were divided into teams of 6 members each, and given various tasks such as blowing balloons, sorting a pack of cards, throwing dice, making boats etc. These represented small parts of the project.We first had to act like the developers and give an time estimate for doing each task...then we had to play the role of a customer and prioritize the tasks, back to developer and do the tasks and see how well our estimated and actual times were.......We learnt a lot of concepts doing this, and we also started appreciating how the customer thinks. SO FAR THE BEST SESSION IN THE BOOTCAMP.

Waterfall to Agile

Agile is a Software development methodology that ThoughtWorks uses. We had a session on the shift from Waterfall method to Agile by a guy called Fred George...he has years and years of programming experience, can program in 60 different computer languages !! and was one of the guys that helped develop the Waterfall Model...now thats MindBlowing

RSP-ROCK SCISSORS PAPER

Hehehehe this is one of the methods thats used at the boot camp when a decison has to be made as to who will have to be at a disadvantage....something like the "Claps" that we guys used while playing hide and seek or other such games....We even have a standard on throwing R, S or P. Cool

FISH BOWL

This is a technique I learnt at the boot camp....its an amazing brainstorming method where four people sit at a table surrounded by the other members, each gives their view to the problem at hand...once they are done speaking they get up and somebody else replaces them...and so it goes on until all people have put across their views. Good One

THE BOOT CAMP

Impressive.........Truly impressive. The training is held at the Leela Palace, and the course content is superb. Some of the techniques used to teach stuff to us are totally cool...Now I have run out of adjectives to describe it further.

Anne Hathaway...

Me thinks that she is damn cute...wat sez you?
I watched her in "Ella Enchanted" and "Princess Diaries" the other day.

CHALLENGING

The "Boot Camp" is what the Thought Workers call training...as the name suggests its gonna be rigorous. But thats alright I have gone thru 12hrs/6days a week of rigor back in college, The real challenge is that the intellectual level at the camp is gonna be pretty high.But like I always say...............

BRING IT ON !!

BOOTCAMP ??

Whats a "boot"camp ? Why is training called bootcamp.This one could have two answers.

• The whole process is as tough as a military bootcamp

OR

• The word "Boot" has been used in the computer sense....."Booting a computer"...so it just means initiation.
  Anyways its gonna be fun !!

First Day, First Show !!

My first official day at TWI was on Sunday the 13th of February......I met people from 5 different countries including India. All I can say is that they are a polite and bright lot. Atleast thats the first impression.....I hope to improve it and make a better attempt at classifying the personalities as I go on...ahem Caution!! Freud at Work.

Hey does anybody know the artist of the song that Hutch is using for its latest "Hey We've shrunk your TV !!" ads ?I know its an old song Coz it was in a movie called "Beetlejuice".Somebody....anybody....tell me.

The BIG Book

1074 pages in a small font size !! Man "Atlas Shrugged" is a giant book.Feels good to have read a giant book. But I still find Fountain Head a much better book.

Two More Exams to go.....Have done pretty well so far....lets see. Especially the last one coz I will not have time to study for it.

TRULY CRUEL

I watched a movie called "Intolerable Cruelty", Starring Catherine Zeta jones and George Clooney. Well it really was intolerable cruelty on part of the makers, to make such a movie.Pathetic.Dont Watch It.

THE BEST MARKETING DEFINITION

CUSTOMER KO GARLAND KARO
COMPETITOR KO GOLI MAARO
- Mohan Kuruvilla

Yunh to haseeno kay
Mahajabeeno kay
Hotey hain roz nazaare
Par unhe dekh Kay
Dekha Hai Jab tumhe
Tum Lagey aur bhi Pyaare.....

Bahon me ley loon
aisi tamanna ek nahi
kayi baar hui......

THATS WHATS PLAYING ON WINAMP

RIGHT NOW I AM .........

* Reading "CATCH 22" (for the fifth time)
* Reading "Business Marketing Management" by Hutt and Speh for exams
* Listening to old Hindi Classics
* Blogging
* Playing QuakeIII
* Doing all of the above simultaneously (well almost)
.......BELIEVE IT !!

A WALK TO REMEMBER

I know I must be studying, but some irresistible movies on TV are pulling me away from my books......One of them is the really really beautiful movie called "A walk to remember" when it first started I thought "oh no, its gonna be another American College movie" but what unfolded was a beautiful story. This one gets Four stars out of Five in my book. SUPERB.
I wonder why nowadays I have started to enjoy romantic movies as well......hmmmm must investigate the cause.

ALEX AND EMMA

I never knew Kate Hudson was such a nice actor, having always confused her for Ashley Judd and so it went until I watched "Alex and Emma" its a funny romantic movie, I would say a must watch....but only on video at home.
Cool one for the weekend.

Beautiful Movie

Few weeks ago I had watched Musafir, couple of days ago I watched a movie called "U-turn" which was Musafirs original hollywood version, with Sean Penn Playing the lead role.
Couple of hours later it was time for "I am Sam", its beautiful, just watch Sean Penn act......amazingly touching movie...very well made. Go get it.

Are you calling me a MALL RAT??

Apparently thats the new jargon for people who do window shopping in malls, without buying a thing.
Hmmmmmmm been there and done that lotsa times, so when you window shop in a mall next time, beware, someone might be calling you a rat behind your back.
thought i smelt a rat !!

MY MBA GURUS

My MBA would have been just an ordinary Degree if it were not for these three guys who took time out of their busy work schedules to teach us.

# Mr. Mohan Kuruvilla - Industrial marketing
He made a dry subject such as Industial Marketing into a class we used to look forward to, full of real life anecdotes and totally cooool sense of humor is what this Guru is made up of.

# Mr. Harish Bijoor - Brand Management
I dont need to say anything much about him, the whole world knows him, just go to google and type in his name and you shall get thousands of hits. A world class Brand Guru.

# Dr. Ganesh Raja - Services Marketing
A subject taught to us in the most scheduled and organised fashion, divided into teams and given cases every week to solve and present to the class....the class room used to be converted into a virtual battle field where the team presenting the case used to be bombarded with questions ranging from weird to awe-inspiring. Amazing sessions.

Whats "Friendship" day??

I just had my birthday......I sure see the logic in celebrating birthdays, but could anyone explain to me the logic of celebrating valentines day or even worse "friendship" day???? Huh?
We dont need a day in August to show our friends we care about them, every day has to be one.
Hats off to the companies who devised these marketing gimmicks to make a fast buck out of gullible consumers.

Obituary

A person who introduced me to reading.....someone who showed me the beautiful world of Arthur Conan Doyle and Arthur Hailey.
My Uncle, passed away in January this year.
I still have lots of books that he used to send me all the way from Bombay. I shall truly miss him.

Today I truly realised that Physical distances dont matter between friends.......One of my closest friends is thousands of miles away from me....out in the U.S. and yet we still converse via letters (emails are too impersonal).
I guess its important that the few true friends we make in life should be cherished.

Hmmmmm

I wonder why the evenings are sooooo beautiful when I have exams, is this just a coincidence or is there an intergalactic conspiracy going on.
Oh the world still is a beautiful place to live in. If you dont trust me, spend an hour watching the sunset from your terrace, its an uplifting experience.
If you can have some Kishore Kumar songs playing softly in the background, its closest one can get to Self Actualisation.

Sania Mirza

Ya ya ya....she went where no Indian has gone before and all that, but in an interview later, she went on cribbing about how bad the facilities in India are and all that.
Come on. Here we guys argue all the time in class and debates that how India as a Brand does not have much equity....and these guys like Mirza who could be our brand ambassadors are doing this on International television....what a shame.

I am sooo happy Marat Safin won the Australian Open......Hewitt was behaving pretty arrogantly thru out the tournament.