Experiencing lateral inversion!

If I was to rewind back to school days, my NCERT science text book would have defined lateral inversion as “The effect produced by a mirror in reversing images from left to right”. In Kerala, I experienced “Lateral Inversion” in a somewhat different way – for some fuzzy reason, in a statistically significant way, most people got ‘left’ and ‘right’ wrong on most occasions. With time, I understood that ‘left’ is ‘left’ and ‘right’ is ‘right’ only as a matter of ‘convention’ and probably there is no strong logic behind that. On the contrary, with ‘up’ and ‘down’ there is some bit of ‘gravity’ rationale that comes into the picture.

To remain attuned to rest of the world, I decided to mentally define ‘right’ as ‘right’ symbolized by a few subconscious, yet logical rules – I started off with “I eat with my right hand”, shifting gradually to “steering is at the right of a car”. Beyond that stage, I don’t quite remember ever having problems with left and right. So in all probability, “steering is at the right of a car” is the ‘internal rule’ that over the years my directional sense has been calibrated too!

Through my existence on planet earth over the last 2 decades and my experience with excel modelling errors, attempts at solving ‘limited-information-case-studies’, trying my luck with Sudoku puzzles and attending structured communication training workshops, I have come to the conclusion that ‘assumption’ is what determines the ‘outcome’!

This is exactly what I experienced on my trip to Europe. Till then, fate had almost cherry picked my driving experiences as purely ‘right-hand drives’ – India, South East Asia, South Africa and Australia. On my trip to U.S., I took a bus from Boston to Capecod. With the intention to experience the ‘left hand drive’, I went and sat next to the driver, in the front. I was left in a state of being ‘zapped’ in a few minutes – possibly a combination of jet-lag and ‘left to right’ transformation on the road left me in that state. It was strange weird feeling – I couldn’t get to terms with the fact that on-coming vehicles were passing-by at 100 miles an hour to our ‘left’!

This November, Maharaj and I rented an E-class from Stuttgart (Germany). Since I had a valid license, I was the one behind the steering wheel. Frankly, I was a bit apprehensive to driving on the right side of the road. I tried various things to convince myself of this transformation, most notably being – ‘driving on the right side of the road, should by definition be the right side of the road!’

My over-cautious side took over for sometime – I drove at the minimum possible speed, shut the music off, kept 100% of my focus on road and tried to follow the arrows on the road. It all looked very weird! Maharaj was trying to give some fundaes and vibes about driving in Germany. I shut him up and said “… and you rustic! Keep shut and utter only when you find me heading on the wrong side of the road!”

Well, it took me probably half an hour to get used to this left to right transformation – with no better phrase to describe this, I coined it as ‘lateral inversion’!

By day-2 of our drive, I had completely lost it all. I had lost the sense of left and right. There were many occasions when Maharaj told me to turn right and I peacefully took the left turn! Given the rusticity of the situation, Maharaj came to my rescue by putting some rustic vibes – finally, we found a reason to cover up this goof-up and blamed it all on the human brain in general. Apparently, human brain can’t distinguish between left and right without any frame of reference, while up and down is governed by gravity.

I am back to the driving convention world that I am comfortable with. Inverse lateral inversion was rather easy – I got my directional sense right on my Avante during the very first minute of the drive. But, wait a minute, is right the right way to look at it when I am myself not sure if right is right and not left? Would Wright Brothers have the right answer to this mystery? Why are right hand drive cars more suited for left side drive? Confusion prevails, so does lateral inversion!

Europe Trip: London, Paris

London

• Met Boopos at Underground station near his house. On Sunday, he was returning from office at 9:45pm, still early by his standards – senti scene followed as we were meeting after 2.5 years :-)


• Reached Boopos ka apartment, had dinner, gen random fundaes discussed, off to sleep


• Next morning, took a bit easy, Boopos left at 8am, I started after 10am


• Headed to Lords Cricket Ground, The home of cricket! – In the last 26 years, histroy has failed to impress me, but for once, it was interesting to know about the history of Ashes, Lara’s record innings, etc, etc


• Had lunch next to the cricket ground, headed to London eye – a fantastic view of the city and places nearby


• Took a few clicks at the Tower bridge (I thought it was the London Bridge, supposed to have been falling down - so said my nursery rhyme!)


• Caught up with friends for drinks and dinner- Challa, Buttler, Anta, Philip Boopos and Bharath


• Next day, got up at 5am or so and boarded the Eurostar to Paris.

Paris

• Toulouse trip cancelled due to non-availability of tickets.


• Checked-in to a hotel, took the day off and slept – It has been 5 days with very little sleep.
• Got up late at night, went for a walk at around 2am near Montparnasse. Enjoyed the chilly cold winter and the light wind that made it even chiller!
• Next morning, took the Metro to Eifel Tower
• Long queue at the tower, so took a city tour
• Went to ….Museum – I can’t appreciate art, just not inclined to any form of art. But, even for someone like me, this Museum was amazing.
• Saw the much-hyped painting Mosalisa. Must say, other painting and the colour combinations used impressed me a lot more
• Visited Notterdam saw from outside and had a good lunch at a typical French restaurant
• Visited another piece of architecture and the region around that. Saw Lido from outside, the show didn’t start till late at night.
• Got back to Eifel Tower – had a chance to go up right till the top (3rd floor) – the view was simply superb. Eifel tower is amazing – build only of iron trusses and it is rock solid, unshakeable!
• Eifel tower was now lighted and was looking fantastic – a true killer sight
• Took night train to Stuttgart – train journey was okay types, perhaps I had expected the train to be a bit better than what it really was
  

Europe Trip: Introduction

The foundation of this post and the basic ingredients were fused on my way back from what had been a fantastic trip to a chosen few destinations across Europe. This post is a brief account of the terrific trip.

Off late, certain otherwise ‘loyal’ blog-readers, have criticized the typical length and wordiness of my posts. Taking into account the ‘recent-criticism’ and my general typing-laziness has resulted in a bullet point account of the Europe trip!

Pre-trip planning

• First thoughts of Europe trip appeared around a year ago.
• Started to plan for this trip in July, applied for vacation and I was politely told “dare not take-off before the end of project” – so mid-October it was!
• I persevered through my allergic response to book shops and eventually succeeded in purchasing a guide to Europe. I had to literally start my trip planning from scratch. – had no clue to the overall geography of Europe; I still wonder how I managed to pass Social Studies exams at School!
• Started with the ‘mugga-process’ on net, found links to typical Europe trips covering major cities, going deep into history of modern Europe, art, etc, etc
• However, that didn't excite me at all. The very idea of going from one museum to the other, from one city to the other, drained me. This didn’t sound to me like a vacation by any stretch of imagination
• Got back to basics, thought and thought about what I really wanted from the trip
• After a few hundred random iterations of possible Europe travel routes, eventually understood what I was looking for – scenery, winter, snow, drives and may be some bit of technical funades –e.g. car museums or visits to manufacturing plants (e.g. Airbus)
• It was a fairly complex plan – had to fit various constraints to my trip. Maharaj’s 6-day vacation schedule, ideally a weekend in London to meet up Junta, attend cousins’ wedding at Delhi, Diwali at home, attend Slippy’s wedding at Udipi, etc
• Hour-by-hour planning is beyond me, except when it comes to challenging long drives. Lack of time to plan out every detail meant that trip had to be like “reach-the-damn-place, search-for-a-tourist-office, … and take it from there!”

The overall planned trip

Singapore ---> Chennai (0.1) ---> Delhi (2.0) ---> London (1.5) ---> Paris (1.0) ---> Toulouse (1.0) ---> Stuttgart (0.5) ---> Switzerland (3.0) ---> Norway (2.5) ---> Frankfurt/ Black forest (1.0) ---> Delhi (0.1) ---> Chennai (1.0) ---> Udipi (2.0) ---> Chennai (0.5) ---> Singapore
(Figures in bracket are number of days spent)

... the journey begins...

Tendulkar: A Great Knock against Pakistan!

A great knock by Sachin, 97 vs. Pakistan leading India to a series victory, has forced me to push my work-in-progress Europe Trip post to the back-burner.

This truly was one of the best innings that Sachin has played - he seemed to have been in the groove and the 'zone' all the way through. Some unbelievable shots played - a typical classical Tendulkar innings characterized by great timing and placement. One can travel miles to see the flicks to square leg, the authoritative square drive and the punches down the ground. A great knock!

Yeah, yet another score in 90s... 6th time in 2007. But frankly, there is no real reason behind it - it is probably one of those things that just happen. Though this would for sure be at back of Sachin's mind, I am sure, as he said at the press conference, he wouldn't think too much about it. Probably what is more important is that he has been in great form, scoring big scores and at the end of the day, a 100 is nothing more than a psychological boundary... a 93 or 97 or 99 is just as good.

Well played Sachin! A great knock!

A trip to Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin in South Western Australia...

I had a chance to travel to Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River in South Western Australia. My last few trips to Perth had been so well scheduled smack in the middle of the week, leaving me with little chance to explore Perth and places nearby. This time around, the story was a bit different. It had started to tilt towards a frustrating week at work – totally pointless slogging and needless-endless spinning of the wheel…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Take work offline, this is a travel post – keep it that way! You are at the border of breaching rule-2

… to break the shackles, after a couple of hours of googling for places to see, I eventually did find a place that qualified as a “drive-able” destination – the choice had less to do with the scenery and credentials of the location, but more to do with the mileage that the odometer could clock! I did a rough summing of distances to figure out that a trip to Margaret River from Perth could be ~600km in a day – not extremely challenging, but enough to keep me interested! The other option was to visit a place nearby (~200kms trip) – but that failed to inspire me enough! I managed to book a rental car on Friday.

Friday evening at work was easy. I was out of office at around 7:30 or so. I did a bit of a walking tour of Perth. Perth is actually a lovely place. It is nearing summer time, but the temperate is still in that zone of comfort - near that 15 degrees mark that I relish the most. May be, it was not just the temperature that made the city fabulous. There is this laid-back attitude that engulfs Perth making an ideal place to chill out. Add to that, Perth rates fairly high on my ABR (average-babe-rating) scale – in my recent global benchmark study of ABR scale, Perth figured right up there, largely driven by presence of certain specimen samples that were observed to be a unique blend of hot and cute variety! :-)

Mr. Blog Moderator: Focus…focus…my friend!

It was a rather strange Saturday morning - I was up at 6:30am, while the alarm was set for 6:45am! There is something about these long-drives that does the impossible to me – “waking up early”! Anyways, I went to collect the rental car. I had asked for a Toyota Camry but was provided with another car – at first go, I couldn’t figure out what the model and make was (after googling over the weekend, came to know that the car was “Holden Commodore”) I found my way to the expressway navigating through Perth roads.

30 minutes into the drive, I had seen nothing outside other than the road and occasional stare at the overtaking vehicles. I had still not reached any level of comfort with the car, I was still trying to synchronize my driving to this new strange car – it was packed with power, the accelerator reacted to the slightest hint and intent to get going, but overall, it lacked that air of refinement. It is a huge turn-off for me usually. Add to it the traditional rectangular side rear-view mirrors (as opposed to the curvy ones you find in most modern cars) gave me a feeling of driving one of those classical vintage cars. The car had the look and feel of a Contessa Classic. I continued to drive, with every passing minute, it got better. One hour into the drive, I had got a good gauge of the engine and the transmission system. Having reached some level of comfort with Holden Commodore, I stopped by a petrol station to stock up some coke-light.

Mr. Blog Moderator: Dude, this is a travel post. Why on earth are you talking about cars and driving and stuff? You are again all over the place; this qualifies as breach of rule #2. Official warning served!

I took a bit of de-tour from highway to enter a region of marshy land. It was a lovely drive – the reflection of the nearby hill in the blue waters was a great sight. I figured out there was no one in the vicinity – no other cars, no houses, nothing… I got off the car and took a few clicks, just as I had started to feel good about the place and scenery around, a scary realization flashed passed my mind – there is absolutely no one here! …I remind myself “if I survive this, I could be the next recipient of red and white bravery award!” While that was inspirational, I need a practical doze of logic. So I told myself “hah, it’s all fauna, there is nothing to fear here”. However, my brave front lasted for exactly 15 seconds. I heard some strange sound and got a feeling that something was moving behind the harmless-green-plants! I got back into the car in a flash, locked all doors and allowed the engine to roar! Phew! I actually didn’t care to look back if there was something really out there.

I took a couple of de-tours on the way to Margaret River – but made sure to remain in the car with the seat belt fastened! Nah, I was not scared, but just in case…! :-)

I reached Margaret River by around 1pm or so after having made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to reach the coast-line on the way. Frankly, Margaret River had been a bit of a disappointment. There was nothing great to see there, it was all winery and wine tasting tours. I was driving that day, so there was no way on earth I could have done the wine-tasting tour. Even otherwise, wine is not exactly aligned with my non-psued life! As I looked around, couldn’t find any decent scenery worth an “orkut-pic”. I have a very simple philosophy to travel – “Is this a place that's worth a few orkut-pics, if not, I wasting my time here”!

As hunger took over me, I got to this sandwich place that had service time of infinity. I was lucky enough to be served within first 60 minutes. Post-lunch, I did a of customary souvenir shopping and just when I was about to head back to Perth, I saw a direction-board that read Cape-Leeuwin – further scrutiny of the entangled maps that I was carrying in collaboration with my limited geographical and direction sense revealed that Cape Leeuwin was where Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean met. For the disappointment that Margaret River had been, here was a ray of hope to make this day “bloggable”!

50 kms I probably covered in 30 minutes and I reached the town of Augusta. The next 15 kms were fabulous. The road ran all along the coast that had a hint of hilly terrain to it. I stopped to take a few clicks. White beach, vast blue water, greenish shallow sea near the beach, waves splashing into white rocks, temperature around 15-18 degrees mark, couldn’t get any better than this. It was in all a great sight, worth the struggle that the day otherwise had been.

I drove further down to Cape Leeuwin, took a few pics at the lighthouse. I tried to push myself to the limit, but my lack of imagination couldn’t help me distinguish between Indian and Southern Ocean water colour.

It was about 2:45pm, Perth was 350 kms away and I had to get back to Perth before sunset. In Australia, it is better to avoid night drives as Kangaroos often take over the roads post sunset. I actually didn’t get to see Kangaroos at all. My net research tells me that there are 3-4 times more Kangaroos in Australia than humans (80Mn vs a population of 20Mn). Got back to Perth by 6:30pm, had a couple of hours of sleep before heading to the airport to take the red-eye flight back to Singapore. Overall an enjoyable day, nice drive, good snaps…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Time up! Breach of rule-3… some people just don’t learn!

Mr. Blog Moderator steps in!

Mr. Blog Moderator is forced to step-in to maintain the reputation and standards that this blog is supposed to live-up to. Recent trends indicate an alarming fact - “zuk new posts in the last one month” – even in the most liberal blogging world, this would have been completely unacceptable. It's time to pull-up the strings, fasten loose bolts and power this blog back to the expressway!

Mr. Blogger's (author is not for blogs!) lack of self-discipline in maintaining this blog, has forced Mr. Blog Moderator to clearly articulate 'The-Blog-Protocol' moving forward. Furthermore, Mr. Blogger is severely reprimanded for not updating this blog in the recent past and three not-to-be-compromised-at-any-stage rules are hereby enforced to get some discipline going:

Rule #1: Thou shall regularly update this blog.

Rule #2: Thou shall maintain post discipline - focus only on the topic on hand, not the entire world surrounding it!

Rule #3: Thou shall compose shorter posts - no more long-posts-that-go-on-and-on-and-on for eternity!

By order,
Blog Moderator

20-20 cricket and Dravid’s decision to call it quits

Quite a lot happening in the world of cricket – So, I thought this would be the ideal time to pitch in with a post on cricket. Two parts to this post: 20-20 world cup and Dravid’s decision to step down as captain of India.

20-20 is truly an amazing concept and in all probability, the future of cricket. Promising a very cricket-unlike "result in 3 hours”, this version of the game is packaged with a lot more intensity to bring cricket on-par with other sports. At first go, 20-20 world cup didn’t excite me at all. It was not until I saw the first match and realized, well, this is different and interesting. Three factors make this version of the game exciting to me:

1. While it looks like a pure batsman’s game at first thought, 20-20 is not just pure bang bang bang with the bat. 20 overs has proved to be a lot of time. Batting requires a fair bit of planning and more than anything else ability to adapt to the situation right there at the centre. With fielding restrictions lasting for first 6 overs, it gets very interesting – should batsmen go all out and slog in the first 6 overs or keep wickets till about 10th over and then start to turn things around. As teams play more and more matches, they will get to the optimum solution to this riddle - it probably depends a lot on the depth of batting, but I think, most teams would try to follow an algorithm as this version of the game develops and game statistics are further analyzed. I am sure most of us have an opinion on this (after all, we are no less cricketing gurus)! I am no different and in my view, if I was the develop a batting plan for 20-20 I would approach the game in the following way:
   
   o First 6 overs are critical – it is important to make most of it to post a huge score. After a couple of quick singles in the first over, 2nd over onwards openers can probably go all-attack and get some quick runs, taking a few risks and sacrificing a wicket or two, if the need be.
   o In my view, 2-wickets-down is probably the first decision point. From there-on batsmen need to balance defense (singles and twos) with full-blown slogging. It all about the confidence the team has in the batting “at what stage can we be reasonably confident of not getting bowled out?”
   o The above would lead to “not any worse than 3 down at 10 over point”, “not any worse than 4-5 down at 15 over point” and so on
   o So, if a team is 40-2 at the end of 6th over, they could possibly play a bit sensibly till 10th over, get to 65-2 or 70-3 by 10th over and then look to take the bowlers on
   
2. There is little to choose between teams in this version of the game. All it needs is a couple of cameo innings to post a decent score on the board. 2 quick-fire 40s or one 60-70 in the innings and you get to a decent 150+ score. While better teams start as favorites, there is every chance that a lesser team would come up on top. This is very good for popularity and the reach of the game.
   
3. Bowlers have a role to play and a very important one. Firstly, it is about understanding expectations – if one can bowl 4 overs for 25 runs, that is indeed a job well done. A bowler with 6 runs an over against his name can walk off the field at the end of 20 overs with his head held high and all pride intact! Secondly, it is not impossible to get wickets in this game. A few bowlers have picked a 4-for in 4 overs and that is no less than a match winning contribution. So, all-in-all, I would say, bowlers continue to be just as important as they are in a one-day or a test-match. It requires all the skill to keep batsmen down to singles when they are looking to attack almost every bowl.

Dravid’s decision to step-down

It was a decision that surprised everyone – after a very successful series in England, this was probably not expected. While various reasons are being speculated ranging from media pressure, to unwarranted criticism to his own batting form to rift between senior players to conflict with selectors to a very reactive decision, etc. But knowing Dravid the way he has been over the years, I find it almost impossible to believe this decision to be anything close to being a “rush of blood”. Dravid is one person who would have thought through this in very minute detail before making his decision public. In tune with his on-the-field personality, “Dravid, the wall” is a very balanced individual off the field as well. He is a master at “putting things in perspective”. I am therefore very sure that this decision is not a result of one comment or incident that irked Dravid, but rather a decision that he believes is in his best interest. If I was to bet my money on the most important reason driving this decision, I would probably guess his own batting form to be the most important factor – an average of 21 in South Africa and 25 in England is clearly playing on his mind.

Who next? - is a tough question to answer. Ganguly is not likely to be given the responsibility, nor would he be very keen to accept it. That leaves Tendulkar to take up captaincy. But it is not that simple. While we expect Tendulkar to play every test match, he would probably like to pick-and-choose one-day matches. Yuvraj’s life off-the field does not make him an ideal candidate at the moment, though I do think he is captaincy material. That leaves Dhoni (the current 20-20 captain) to take charge. These are still early days in his career and captaincy could prove to be one responsibility too many for Dhoni. Having said that, Dhoni is very clearly what could be termed as “captaincy material” – a balanced responsible player as a very consistent performer.

As a Tendulkar fan, I would like him to focus on his batting and produce a few high-class innings before he decides to retire in the next 1-2 years. But, given the situation, it probably makes sense for Tendulkar to share the burden of captaincy and groom Dhoni over the next 2-3 series. A bit of a tough situation to be in, but hopefully team India will stay united in what promises to be a challenging winter ahead – a lot of matches against Australia and a few with Pakistan.

Musical preferences and peer pressure!

While I was living a bit of a flash back last weekend, a very strange realization struck me, leaving me perplexed and with much to think about. – I found that my music preferences have changed quite a bit over the last few months. I tried to extend this flash back to as further back as I could to help me better understand this strange phenomenon. I found that, unlike most other things, my musical preferences have varied a lot over time. I gave it a bit more of thought, but I couldn’t get my head around how and why musical preferences have changed as much as they really have. Further introspection made me realize that this has by far not been a gradual natural shift over years, but instead a highly fluctuating trend largely driven by my external factors!

To put things in context, let me show an illustrative graph of how my musical preferences have evolved over time. (graph above)

With a very theoretical approach to problem solving, I tried to break this issue up into number of small time intervals to derive some sort of trend that could explain this huge fluctuation in preferences. This is how my musical taste had changed over years:

Early and mid 90s: Rehman’s brilliance and Baba Sehgal’s rap music essentially got the first change to my music taste

Late 90s: Much of it was driven by MTV, Channel V and 2 hour a week, 7pm-9pm countdown of western numbers on Chennai’s 107.1 FM

… moving to the more interesting phase of changes…

August 1999 onwards started my vidya vihar campus life. My walkman helped me survive through the initial ragging days on campus. That was not to last long as my walkman was subsequently “borrowed” by a senior (I still distinctly remember the senior who took my walkman away!). Anyways, immediately after the first one month of ragging as winter began to set in, I found my way to Nutan market and bought 2 local rustic speakers with a matching amplifier to help me graduate from walkman head-phones to something more bass-producing.

Our wing had started to gel together, 11 of us from 8 different states talking different languages. So was the music, a bit of Assamese music mixed with Gult and Tamil numbers from other half of the wing. Then there was rock and I had my pop music! I was then so against rock music that I had only one expression to describe rock music – noisy nonsensical stuff for drug-addicts!

Music to me was then pop – I would listen to boyzone and backstreet boys and likes. I called MLTR as rock (by the way, MLTR has and will remain my favorite). As our wing slowly became a wing from a group of 11 different individuals, we became a bit more vocal about our opinions. Soon, I started hearing comments like “THIS guy only listens to dhhop dhoop ding ding pop music” … while I put up a brave face to all the comments with a not-so-convincing reply that went like “so wat, my music, my preference!”. By the end of first year, my wing’s perseverant criticism has succeed in creating one significant change – I had internally started to feel the pinch of not knowing what rock was all about.


Year-2 (2000), I got my comp. to campus – while the intention was to learn some Java and C, the comp. processor spent most of it’s time processing music files and “movies” J.

I copied tons of music files to my hard disk – I now had a vast collection of music including rock. Somehow, I couldn’t get myself to listen to heavy metal. But this was to change soon – a change driven by my wing as they would all barge in and change the music to rock. When I resisted the change to rock, I would get a lecture from my wing and a long explanation to how my pop music sucked big time! Slowly, I started to appreciate rock, what sounded like noise not too long ago, had started to sound like music now – there was energy in bass and metal sound that I started to appreciate, there was madness in head-banging that I had started getting addicted to, etc, etc

Overall, the shift to rock was very much driven by my wing and access to MP3 songs. While it was to become my preferred music over the next few years, the dramatic shift was nothing more than pure peer pressure that raised an internal voice – “me too please…!”

I continued with ‘primarily rock’ music for most of my 2 years at WIMWI as well with no major changes. I played roughly the same play-list over and over again. Unfortunately, this in some ways implied that I had cut myself from following the latest top-chart music. My only exposure to new music during this entire phase was at ramp parties that I was anyways not too regular to.

Once I shifted to Singapore, we got a music system for our home and another amplifier for my room – I continued with my “rock only” music for most of my first year here. My flat-mates and other close friends would often play some nice Hindi-remixes and I gradually started to enjoy non-rock music all over again. No drastic measures as yet, I was happy with the mix of music and the odd addition of Hindi pop was always welcome.

2007, a different beat!

I am not a great believer of making new-year resolutions, but I sorta intended to bring about some change to my musical taste in 2007. It started off with when I got a few Hindi CDs during one of my customary Landmark visits in Chennai towards the end of 2006.

The next quantum leap was in April 2007 after I got my Avante. My first week drive of Avante was with heavy “side-rear-view mirror vibrating” rock music. While I enjoyed the blast of music, my friends didn’t exactly think too high of my music taste. I noticed the gradual resistance building up and I could visualize my music collection being vetoed against – this did hit me! I was now under pressure once again, to bring about a change and become socially more acceptable!

It was on one of those “destination-less” drives in Singapore, by some strange configuration of lack of other time-pass activities, we shifted to playing Antakshri. I had like not played Antakshri for years and it was nearly a life-changing experience for me if I was to stretch my imagination a bit. Firstly, it was back to Hindi music and alarmingly, I could only recall only very old Hindi songs! – the ones that a generation elder to us would classify as old! I was labeled as “1950s songs expert”! While that ended as a joke we had a good laugh about, it somehow made me ask myself some very philosophical and open ended questions “why have I completely shut myself from Hindi songs, Hindi pop, Western pop?” That of course had just one answer as I immediately went to the music store and began the process to gradually upgrade my music collection.

This was a turning point for sure. I still do enjoy rock as much as I once did, but I have started to get back to other forms of music that I once used to relish. It has been a strange rediscovery – certain songs have certain events and time stamps associated with them. e.g. Hindi pop (esp. Baba Sehgal) takes me back to my younger days, MLTR (like Someday Somewhere) takes me back to 30 minutes before a test, Bryan Adams’ “18 till I die” and Roxette take me back to my 12th standard days, Roja to very vague memories, etc, etc

This change in 2007 has again been driven by friends and so called peer pressure. I have little clue about how this trend would shape up in the years to come. However, if there is one thing I do know and I can be sure about, is that, I will continue to enjoy my music collection – the form, language, intensity would continue to fluctuate, but hopefully not the underlying passion!

800 rpm at crossroads!

800rpm (my auto blog) was intended to be unique and different in some ways. In the short period of time since this blog first rolled out of the "manufacturing plant", it has already been to the service centre a couple of times with the co-drivers/ bloggers wanting to redesign this blog entirely!

After the fanfare surrounding the initial launch ceremony, Maharaj and I entered a phase of cold war. While I wanted this blog to be christened 800 rpm giving it a refined-and-cool-feel-with-just-enough-power, Maharaj wanted a more aggressive image with name closer to being 6000rpm and the blog’ image around roaring-engines-producing-full-thrust-power. With diametrically opposite preferences and tastes governing how we envisaged this blog to be, Maharaj and I officially declared the war on!

Over the next couple of months, we will leave no stone unturned to prove our respective blog-name preferences. The battle sparked-off with a few rough email exchanges, followed by a chat and call to prove how disgusting 6000rpm as a name was, etc, etc. In the coming few months, we are considering both legal and illegal steps to help us reach a conclusion. On legal front, we have approached IUPAB for the rules governing the latest blogging nomenclature (IUPAB is International Union of Pure and Applied Bloggers). We have also appealed to the wing jurisdiction to come-up with its point of view. Needless to say, 800 rpm is likely to emerge as the winner in the process given how nerdy 6000 rpm as a name is.

On the illegal front, our first instinct was to say “pen is mightier than a sword” and a “keyboard is mightier than a pen” – so let this battle be fought over blog posts. However, that didn’t sound like war enough, so we got back to fighting the battle with a sword instead. In the process, Maharaj ended up with a wounded left hand and had to undergo an operation to set it right.

While this was the opportune time for me to take over and declare 800rpm as the eventual winner, I am a firm believer of war ethics. Maharaj was therefore granted time to recover before we continue this battle further! In the mean-time, I will go ahead and compose a few posts for this blog – And you Mr co-blogger, recover soon buddy!

Tendulkar: Letting the bat do the talking!

I had planned to complete my work-in-progress post on time management this morning, but 2 amazing knocks from Tendulkar resulted in this post featuring on this blog first.

Many congrats to Sachin on reaching 15,000 ODI runs - what a player! Mind-boggling statistics spread over 18 years of high-consistent performance explained by one magic number - a career average of 44.24 after yesterday's knock of 93.

The 2 knocks of 99 and 93 this week against South Africa in some ways summed up Tendulkar's career over the years.

His 99 on Wednesday was all pure grit - prior to the match, he was not in best of forms, knew he had got out to playing a rather loose shot against Ireland. So, he came out to bat against South Africa with a very determined look, playing very straight with no flamboyance, stuck to his task with all the patience on earth and produced a gritty innings of 99. This is what differentiates Tendulkar from other great players say Lara - he changes his gears and plays well within himself when things are not going all great for him, managing to make runs and fight his way back.

Friday's 93 was a high class innings - knew he had got his bearings right, now was the time to dominate and prove a few things. Many aggressive shots on a pitch with a fair degree of bounce and movement - a few punching square cuts, powerful pull shots and then later danced down the wicket to the spinner to play a few lofted shots over the ropes - an exhibition of why he is still the best and the most dangerous batsman around. A glorious innings under rather tough circumstances!

I have been a Tendulkar fan for most of what I term as "my in-senses life". 18 years back, when Tendulkar first walked in, I knew very little about cricket (I was 7 then!). Being Tendulkar's fan then meant nothing more than appreciating those 4s and 6s and 50s and 100s - a boundary was "hurraay", a rare dot dot-ball was "come on, whack them out of stadium" and his dismissal meant "numb silence". Since then, I have followed almost every cricketing and non-cricketing move of Tendulkar. Over the years, as a Tendulkar fan, I have been through many different stages, with every stage providing an additional reason to admire Tendulkar:

For cricketing reasons (stages from 1989 till date):
hurray >> entertainer >> great shot maker >> early achievements >> aggressive batsman >> high degree of focus >> compact batsman with a great technique >> very stable head >> highly ambitious >> great batsman >> high commitment to the game >> mentally the toughest around >> high cricketing ethics >> team man >> best batsman with all possible world records >> high passion for the game >> closest to being a perfect batsman

For non-cricketing reasons (stages from 1989 till date):
cool head >> positive thinker >> aggressive thinker >> extremely modest >> very ethical in all spheres of life >> high commitment to family >> high emotional intelligence >> assumes social responsibility >> a very balanced thinker >> closest to being a perfect human being

... I can go on and on and on about Tendulkar. But let me stop here and congratulate Tendulkar once again for getting to 15,000 ODI runs. As a fan, I would want Tendulkar to go on for ever, but we all do realise that Sachin is now probably nearing the end of his career. Let's hope that he finishes on a high, dominating all attacks over the next couple of years.

Repercussions of a desperate hunt for blogging topics!

I have said it before and I say it again - the biggest roadblock to my otherwise promising blogging career is my complete lack of ability to think of nice blogging topics. Once a topic is 'assigned' to me, I can sorta find my way through the post.

If I had a database with minute-by-minute data of how I have spent my free-time in the recent past, blogging would appear right up there on top. That however does not mean that I spend a lot of time next to my laptop typing out posts. Let's look at this rather interesting phenomenon in greater detail which has left me perplexed! Some estimated data to help us understand this strange situation (all figures estimated as a percentage of total blogging time)

Reading other blogs : 5%
Typing out posts : 15%
Reading my own blog : 5%
Thinking of blogging topics : 75%!!

Further breakdown of 'thinking of blogging topics' (total 75%) reveals:

Staring at the wall : 25%
Over lunch/ dinner : 20%
During office meetings :15%
While waiting at traffic signal : 5%
Commercial break between overs of a cricket match : 5%
Looking for topics on orkut : 5%

The above data gives some indication to the gravity of the current problem. To sum it all up, this never-ending search for good blogging topics has taken a high share of my precious free time away! There has to be a solution to this... in my quest to answer the biggest puzzle of my life, I thought "what are friends for?", let me ask for some help. So, I pinged Ninja on gtalk and asked her for "good blogging topics, please" - little did I know that I this was a sure shot formula leading to nothing but disaster. After much pleading, got a response "go blog on fashion!"... my immediate reaction was "waaaaat, no way"... so I stopped chatting and got back to my staring-at-the-wall-for-topics state. Spent hours thinking, didn't get another topic of interest. So, thought - "lemme write something on fashion offline and if it shapes up well, will post it on the blog"

So, I started typing... "ehh...fashion... is amazing... is good... defines attitude"

... didn't sound that good, realized I knew very little about fashion to blog. The only way out now was to act brave and write a post with a few strong statements!

"...to me, fashion means absolutely nothing... while television channels would hate this blog from now on, I think fashion has exploited viewers of their time and money... I was shocked to see fashion tv on the list of pay-for-view channels... it can at best be termed as a complete waste of time and money... we as individuals should have our own identity... following a fashion, is much like being lost in image of a brand... that's not inspiring enough, the world needs a change. Dear readers, please go and define your own fashion! For instance, fashion to me is a pair of jeans with a-crushed-and-washed-but-not-ironed shirt... da da da"

... not heading anywhere, I decided to end the post there... still in search of a topics...juntaaa, please help!

Launching 800rpm!

This post is to announce the launch of a very special blog - 800 rpm (http://www.800rpm.blogspot.com/) focusing entirely on the auto world.

This blog will continue to be my primary blog - with a mix of funny, 'bloggy' and serious posts (to inject some element of sanity!)

However, over the next few days, I will be devoting a lot of my free time to the new blog to get it up to speed. The interesting part is that Maharaj (Arun) would be my co-blogger for 800rpm.

We will be focusing entirely on the auto world. Though we haven't structured every detail of the content to be posted, very broadly we will be covering the following:

• Car reviews and test-drives
• Auto fundaes
• Driving fundaes
• Auto industry developments
• Others/ Misc

Much of it is going to be dynamic and I am sure with time, the broad categories would evolve as well. Anyways, for more details, please visit http://www.800rpm.blogspot.com/

A journey of 1000 kms begins with a single spin!

Life is a journey, travel it!... it’s the path that matters, not the eventual destination… focus on the efforts, not on the results... da da da

Sounds like a perfect beginning to one of those long boring philosophical posts on life and goals, etc, etc… however, dear readers, don’t be so disappointed, this post is the exact opposite!

I was initially thinking of posting a very objective matter-of-fact review of different cars that I have test driven in the recent past, but decided to instead post about a day that was from my point of view exciting, ambitious, thrilling and entertaining and for someone distant from the driving world, it would have been at best boring and tiring!

The story till Friday, May 4th 2007:

Singapore, a near diamond shaped island, 40kms wide and 30 kms in length when extruded out of complex trigonometry and geometry formulae would probably stretch to 100kms in perimeter. I had driven nearly 1300 kms in Singapore in 2 weeks, essentially implying that there was no major road left untouched. I started off with “lets try this expressway”, two days later I was like “lets try the 2nd lane of the same expressway”, a couple of days more I was like “practice makes a man perfect, so keep driving and repeating the same roads again and again!”…

It was during one of these drives, the music deviated away from “high-bass, side rear view mirror vibrating and floating rock music” to “…I want to break free…I wanna break free…” and I thought, well, I have had enough of driving in Singapore - I actually need to break free as well – probably a drive to Malaysia and experience highway driving. Next step was rather simple – visa application to embassy of Malaysia and I got my multiple entry visa in a week’s time!

Then I started calling up my friends to join me for the trip - while some were direct in their feedback “dude, crazy idea… I am not joining”, other psued specimens like Candy were a bit more refined “would have loved to join you on the trip, but have got work over the weekend and a couple of meetings in the office”… finally after much persuasion, Abhishek and Aparna (K&M from now on, dorm names not used in public interest :P) agreed to be part of my crazy idea – a trip to Mount Frazer and back (~1000 kms) in a day!

Saturday, May 5th 2007…

With no real preparation required for the trip, we decided to start at 5:45 am after a negotiation process that lasted for 30 mins debating the pros and cons of a 5:45am start vs. a 5:50am one! As usual, I had to goof up with the alarm and by some strange configuration of phone settings, the alarm just didn’t ring. I got a call at 5:45 from K&M and I woke up in a state of shock – “What! I am late to get up for a drive?… no way, this is not me…!” However, made some quick recovery and we finally managed to start off at about 6:15am. A quick trip to money exchanger and stocking up a couple of cold drink cans, we were all geared up for a trip to Malaysia.

We crossed the border after immigration formalities by 7:30am and hit the expressway by 8am. The road was excellent with speed limits not as strict as in Singapore. So, I decided to throttle a bit more and see how the car behaved at higher speeds. At 150 kmph, Avante was sailing – well balanced and sturdy, felt in complete control. I will go into technical and driving details in the next post, but to sum it all up, the drive was quite cool and the engine behaved in the exact fashion that fits my exact definition of an ideal engine/ car – packed with power when required, otherwise serene, refined and calm with low decibel levels!

While M free-rode and peacefully slept, K was busy with navigating out goof ups. We had one map to help us – on most occasions we got the highway right, however a couple of times we found ourselves driving down the wrong direction though! :-)

We reached KL is quick time, had a quick brunch – so did the car (petrol refill)! The next stage was a bit more challenging as we found our way to the other end of KL bye-passing the city. We soon reached the smaller highway leading to our final destination. With significant decrease in road quality and width, it took us much longer to get to Mount Fraser than we had initially imagined. We got lost a couple of times, till we found a desi to help us with directions. In typical desi style, the route from his point of view was simple – “keep going straight, no turns”… we were like, “thanks, you are the man!”. However, 200m further down, the road split to two tangentially opposite directions! With not much left to trust the directions we were provided with, we decided to trust our instincts instead - right turn was the verdict!

The uphill drive was a challenge as well, at times the road was a bit too narrow to be classified as 2-way – meant that much more of focus on the road and control at the bends. But Avante behaved very well at turnings and steering through the challenging climb was a pleasure – more on this in the next post.

Finally, we made it to Mount Fraser at 2:30pm and then began the search for a restaurant for lunch. We had to now define the “next steps” – any places to see around? K managed to catch some sort of cold on the way and that was reason enough for him to free-ride. I was the designated driver and therefore I tried to act as if I was too tired. That left M to do all the googling for places to see. Next 5 minutes were completely hilarious – M tried to communicate with a mixture of sign language, actions and Singlish, but that did didn’t help much. We were trying to get the directions to a lake: “ehh… lake, where?”… no reply… “water…?” again no feedback from the other side to confirm if our attempt to communicate had been received and understood… next, we tried showing mineral water, but that did no good too… finally M got the idea of asking for “..boating?” aahaa, our receptionist understood and gave us rough directions to the lake.

We were in more ways that one excited about the lake and boating… our conversation went like:

“… wow, lake would be fun here” … “lets get the camera out” … “we don’t have tons of time, so lets keep the lake visit short, mebbe just cover one part of the lake boating” … “a speed motor boat would be fun here, lets try for that”… and there was a gradual build-up in excitement leading to the lake.

The lake was not too far, we got there with 5-10 minutes of drive. However, we were greeted with a shocking sight: 1) The lake was a bit brown in colour, as opposed to blue that we had envisaged 2) There was exactly one pedal boat in the lake and the other 3 were stacked one over the other at the corner of the lake 3) … and finally it hit us… nooooo… the lake was only a fraction bigger than a bath tub… just a hint bigger! Ofcourse, as M was the navigator at Mount Fraser, K and I peacefully blamed her and added the lake to her list of exponentially increasing list of recent goof-ups!

It was time to lower our expectations – to understand and accept that Mount Fraser is not a tourist spot by any stretch of imagination. We spent half an hour doing time pass at a view-point – it was good, just that there was no view. To limit any further damage to our self-esteem and trip-planning confidence, we decided to erase out from our memories that we ever visited this place! It was unanimously decided that all pictures taken at Mount Faber would be donated to the recycle bin of our laptops, once we get home!

With K down with tons of cold and a bit of fever, M decided to be the navigator on the way back. We started from Mount Faber at around 4pm, stopped at another lake in between in an attempt to search for that one good scenery to make this trip good, but didn’t find any. With not much left to see, we started the return journey back to Singapore.

Next 6 hours was all driving – we stopped once in between for tea and once for petrol, but otherwise I did what I enjoy the most – night driving, a true test of driving technique, stamina and inclination. Avante clocked 500kms in quick time and we were back at the Singapore immigration at about 10:30 at night. There was some visa and passport configuration problem and resulting punga at the Malaysia immigration, but M in her typical style went and gave a big lecture to the immigration officer and sorted it out!!

As we entered Singapore, the odometer read 970 kms for the day. With Newton/Novena being only 15-20 kms from the border, I knew that the decimal system of mathematical numbers wouldn’t let me reach 1000 kms in a day. So, took a slightly longer route, via Tuas to inch closer to the 4 figure mark. Next when I saw the reading, it was 994 for the day – and I knew we were ~5-7 kms from home… was not sure if we would get to 1000, but decided to go ahead with the straight route back home. One traffic signal from home, the odometer read 999… it was close, very close and the meter turned to 1000 exactly when we were at the security gate of the building!

We were all tired after doing 1000kms – but M still had the energy to make some quick dinner and we called it a day soon after that!

This was my second time to 1000 kms in a day, the first being in October last year in South Africa. I wouldn’t want to compare, but this trip was probably a bit more challenging with 3-4 hours of hill drive included. But statistics apart, it was a great trip with K&M. More trips in the pipeline over the next few weekends, any takers? :-)

Capturing a very special moment - the state of Nirvana

This is a very special post, to capture a very special moment that has eclipsed everything else over the last 3 days. I will struggle with words for most part of this post, ‘coz I am currently in a state of Nirvana, a high resulting not from 5 bottoms-up of neat Scotch Whiskey on the rocks, but a high resulting from realization of a long cherished dream come true. It might sound like I am going a bit overboard with this, but it wouldn’t have been a special post otherwise, right?
This Thursday, I got my car! … lemme give a short preview to the events and emotions starting from just before Thursday evening to the time when I started typing this post.

Jan 2007, first serious thought about car ---> Applied for Basic Theory Test to convert my India license to a valid Singapore one ---> Started with understanding various different cars, a trip to showroom almost every weekend to understand the specifications, price, design, etc ---> booked 17th March as test date for driving test ---> 16th evening, got a Singapore traffic book to ghot ---> went for a movie on 16th evening, came back at ~2am and then realized “ohh. crap, haven’t ghoted for the test” ---> ghoted the driving rule book from 2am to 5am on 17th early morning ---> went and gave the test, lady luck helped me pass the test and after ~2 hours of patience in the queue, got my license to drive!

Without even thinking of breakfast or lunch, I directly went to the car dealer, told them, “look, I am legally permitted drive now, so better let me take a test drive”! ---> went to different showrooms – Chevrolet, Subaru, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Toyota to check out all possible cars that could fit my extended-extended budget! ---> gave a very deep thought to what I really wanted vs. the risk of taking a huge loan ---> developed an excel model to see if there were any remote cost savings that I could do to fit the monthly installment of car in ---> alas, it made no financial sense to buy a car here in Singapore à so, Mr. Logic said, “don’t be stupid, there is no real need to buy a car, it makes zuk financial sense” ---> then Mr. Unknown told “stop living life so defensively, stop being calculative with things that matter to you most, try being fearless for once, stop relying on logic for every damn decision!” ---> and so… decision was made, Mr. Logic was asked to take a chill pill!

So, after one final round of test drives on 1st April, made up my mind to go for Hyundai Avante ---> surprisingly, it was not even in my initial short-list, ‘coz I wanted a manual transmission only, while Avante came with automatic version only ---> deep thought again, decided to let-go the stigma attached with manual transmission to appreciate the other good things with Avante à booked the car over lunch on Monday, 2nd April

I was reasonably happy with the decision, though felt nothing special as such à work kept me busy for the next one week ---> on 11th April, got a message from the dealer – “your car has been registered and will be delivered this week” ---> I called back immediately, said “please please, asap!” ---> the plead was responded to and I was informed that I could collect it on Thursday evening (12th April) ---> Since then, I have been in a different world! ---> Mr. Logic probably gave up and disappeared and Mr. Unknown has been governing all my actions since then ---> didn’t sleep much on Wednesday night, out of sheer excitement and expectation of a special day ahead ---> next morning, went to work à everyone was like “can you please stop smiling for no reason?” ---> did a bit of work, with half my mind in the fast approaching dream world ---> finished the work and left office early at 7pm ---> rushed to the showroom ---> signed the documents, saw if the relevant papers were intact, and this was it ---> was handed over the key and …

Wasn’t entirely sure of the way back home from the showroom ---> a very tentative drive back home ---> takes a bit of time to adjust to a different car, so patiently drove back home ---> a quick couple of calls back home, started off within 10 minutes to see my cousin ---> lost my way, took the wrong route, but “so wat, I was enjoying it”! ---> drove and drove from 8pm to about 2:30 am, ofcourse with stops in between for a Birthday party and some late night Mc Donald’s visit ---> special thanks to special friends (Candy, Bharti, Bulco, Abhishek) for making the evening special ---> back home at 3am, had clocked ~150 kms by then!

Since then, a few more drives all across Singapore ---> have done 400 kms already! ---> many of these drives were purely “aimless” ---> take any damn expressway, keep driving, will reach somewhere at some stage, take a U-turn back and drive and drive ---> get lost somewhere in between à but I have enjoyed it all ---> I delayed the decision to purchase a road map and since then haven’t looked at the map, ‘coz I am enjoying these “aimless drives with no real motive or destination” ---> Maslow would have seen me drive before he came up with the term “self-actualization”!

Today, Sunday morning, got up à went for breakfast, something that I haven’t done in years, just to drive! ---> came back, did the first car wash here, spent a bit of time near the engine, but frankly, with all technology coming in, I couldn’t understand much

So, this is how it has been ---> frankly, I am in a totally different world at the moment ---> have dreamt of having a car for way too long (~2 decades now probably!) ---> and it is slowly sinking in ---> not sure, if any one else can appreciate it, probably Maharaj who is himself a bit crazy about driving would get somewhere close to appreciating my state of mind at the moment! ---> for others, I continue to a topic of intense research over the last 3 days “… he was okay till sometime back, currently looks like a case of acute mental instability, lets pray he recovers and stops smiling… ” and from my point of view, this is Nirvana!

PS: This post was purely to capture this moment. I will get back to my logical ways soon, hopefully before tomorrow morning; otherwise my boss will give me a tough time!! My next post will be a driving review on Avante. In short, I currently term Avante as “Raw power fused with dazzling curves and calm refinement”

A bit of rubbish...

This is going to be a slightly different post - I am a bit annoyed with the way we all have reacted to World Cup debacle...

I am just as much disappointed with India's early exit from World Cup... to the extent that I haven't seen a match since India lost to Sri Lanka. But nothing on earth, warrants this sort of reaction from the media, public, etc

Anyways, that is history now - the events that have since then transpired have showed one simple thing - as a nation, we are highly emotional - we tend to live on extremes - worship Tendulkar one day and then show utter disregard the very next, now that we are out of the cup.

Probably, we all need to put things in perspective. Are we over-reacting? More importantly, is over-reacting to the situation and dumping the entire team likely to improve the performance of the team? My answer is a crystal clear no to the above. Yes, there is need for young blood in our team, but not at the cost of Tendulkar and co.

That is anyways a lesser point - I seriously don't mind that much when critics take a dig at Tendulkar's recent performance - it has been ordinary by his standards. But, to go one step deeper and question Tendulkar's attitude, motivation and commitment to the game is something unacceptable. We all have observed Tendulkar for 17 years to know what the truth is. Our ex-coach got this part totally wrong. I am still giving Mr Chappell some sorta benefit of doubt, terming his out-burst against Tendulkar as an 'error in judgment' as opposed to something 'intentional'.

May be, just may be, the onus is on us, to support the team and ask ourselves "What can be our role here?" Can we look beyond criticizing players and being a threat to the safety of their families?

My experiments with stress management

This is going to be a bit of a heavy post, I will get back to my ‘chill blogging resolution’ soon. A post on stress management has been in the pipeline for long – has been a topic of interest and research since school days and more so in the last couple of years.

However, over the years, there have been a few changes to my attitude, understanding and approach to stress management. Often as it turns out to be, going through a rough phase can help us discover new things and this is what exactly happened with me. It is so much like Test match cricket, you go through a rough phase, you then improve your technique, temperament and attitude to the game. For me, in some ways, it has been a journey of extremes – from a point when I thought, stress meant nothing, driven by some sorta arrogant belief that one can take tons of stress (I can handle it all!) if one has the ability to chill out – to the other extreme when I finally understood that stress needs to be managed on a regular basis and there is more to it than just trying to be chill.

Since then, it has been a process of gradual reconstruction, driven by the intent to discover what I termed as AM_v2 (much like how Indica transformed as a car after initial quality issues!) – there is always that scope for improvement, but I have learnt a bit about stress management and this post is an attempt to put it all together.

Rest of this post is going to be more in graphical format to communicate the complex message better:

We all deal with stress differently. Please do get back to me with your comments if you think differently about stress management.

Of rusticity and vibes!

I am currently at the half way point of the long Chinese new-year weekend. After an unsuccessful attempt at an unplanned road trip to East-coast Malaysia, I am back to my default state of doing nothing, also termed as guss in certain rustic parts of North-Western India! Having mastered the art of ‘doing nothing’, I thought, well, doing something constructive might not be that bad an idea. This in turn led me to spending a fair bit of weekend time thinking of possible serious blogging topics ranging right from motivation to driving to world cup to India’s growth story to stress management to wikipedia vs. unclycopedia, etc, etc. In the next few months, I will pitch in with my 2 cents on these topics, but for now, I am in ‘maxo arbit’ mood to even think of anything remotely serious! So, without further ado, let me jump into the most arbit post published on this blog since the previous posting!

Before moving on, a huge disclaimer: The following post, might make some (non)-sense to my wingies, but others please consult your psychiatrist before reading any further!

Nene/Ajay provided the initial momentum to this random post. Hence any frustration and disgust resulting out of this post can be directly communicated to Nene!

The following statements need no introduction, so...

Inspirational Quotes

• Give me a rustic to vibe and I will move the earth
• Give me vibes, I will give you rusticity
• Whatever the rustic can conceive and believe, the viber can achieve
• A journey of thousand miles begins with a single vibe
• After all, a rustic is a social viber
• All that vibes is not rustic
• Not everything than can be vibed vibes, not everything that vibes can be vibed
• I was born a rustic, education vibed me!
• Vibes is mightier than rusticity

Murphy’s Law

• If rusticity can vibe, it will

Laws of Physics

• An object in rusticity will remain in rusticity unless acted upon by an external vibe
• The rate of change of rusticity of a body is proportional to the resultant vibes acting on it
• For every vibe, there is an equal and opposite rusticity
• Vibes can neither be created, no be destroyed, it can only be transferred from one rustic to the other
• If two rustics are in vibed-up equilibrium with a third, then they are vibed-up with each other
• In any vibe, total rusticity of universe remains constant
• The rusticity of the universe increases with every spontaneous vibe

Okay, even I am tired of these vibes! Too rustic, I think

Freeriders with a pinch of professionalism!

This post is a result of a news article that was recently published in The Economic Times instigating an instant spam on freeriders mail list.
Link to the article:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/IIM-A_to_revise_placement_fee_for_flagship_programme/articleshow/1502401.cms


Being a topic of utmost significance and a decision that we had owned till recently, we discovered the setting was just about perfect for a placecom meeting! The participants of this meeting are the free-riders. (Boopos, Candy, Cosmo, Daph, Deepthi, Oik, Peepu, Slippy, Me)

The stage was all set for another round of heated discussions. But, there is a small issue now. The last meeting was held a fraction under 2 years back. We were then purely the pizza ordering, room cleaning, chairs lifting, walkie-talkie communicating, file making, stationery storing, phone line connecting, catering-desk setting, dynamic scheduling, PPT attending, preferences matching, company logo pasting, e-pigeon maintaining, short-list withholding, CV dead-lining, interview scheduling, recruiter-faculty lunch arranging free-riders!

However, two years down the time line, would the placecom discussion still be the same? Or will all of us look at things differently given the “professional-ization” that we have been subjected to! Let’s take a glance as to how things have changed and the influence that professional life has had on us.

Given the gravity of this problem and the possible repercussions it could potentially lead to, free-riders decided to take a day off to meet at Placecom office, Wimwi, Vastrapur. The venue for the meeting was the same old rectangular room in placecom, now with air-conditioning support to manage the temperature that the discussion could possibly result into!

We entered the room and quickly assumed our standard seating configuration. Let’s take a peak into how the discussion started off.


Me: Let’s order some pizza yaar, long-time no free pizza!!

Peepu: Get serious guys, we are meeting after a long time. All I can say is that I missed you all a lot. Those were simply amazing days, those discussions, those night-outs at LKP…

Rest of us: abe koi iska senti band karwao…!

(Peepu then realized that no one actually reacted to his senti speech. Dumb silence ruled the room for 15 seconds. The leli had happened, now let’s get started with the meeting!)

Peepu: Let me set the context for this meeting. As some of you might have read, insti has decided to charge a fee of Rs 1 Lakhs per candidate across all slots. We are here to discuss this matter and I would like to hear your views on this.

(A pause of 15 seconds again…)

Slippy: Let me pitch in, since rest of you still don’t seem to be in any mood to discuss! While setting up the retail chain that I did recently, we had to pay similar amounts to the building constructors per store across all cities in India. I see a lot of synergies of this discussion with my current work and I think insti is justified in asking for this fees.

Cosmo: I think there are multiple sides to this issue. Being a CA, I know how difficult things can get between placecom and insti – the sheer mammoth task of reworking the credits and debits into different slot accounts will require a lot of understanding of accounting basics. Then there is this issue of deferred tax that comes into picture and we need to figure out the possible impact it would have on the resulting ratios that wimwi would get to…

(Dumb silence again engulfs the room; we are all reminded of the dreadful Manac classes and quizzes of first term at wimwi way back in 2003. Candy and I exchange “extreme give-up” looks! Boopos appears to have understood some part of this funda with a nod of his head that either implies that he actually got the funda or he is looking at this as an opportunity to improve his listening skills!)

Comso: … add to it, with the extra cash flow coming in, insti can think of investing in infrastructure bonds that I recently recommended one of my clients to invest in. Typically, high return bonds and there are plenty of tax exemptions under section 420 of Indian Accounting and Tax Act…

(We all again look at each other, with high levels of internal self-doubt and body language that read “anyone else in the same boat? Or am I the only one who still doesn’t understand Manac?” None of us dared to speak a word. It required a brave soul to pull the discussion further. Who better than the anti-placecommer to take it forward)

Deepthi: I don’t want any companies to come on campus. It sounds so stupid to ask for money – okay call it fees. Ever since this article has been published, the recruiting head of my company simply refuses to go any further than one sentence with me on phone call…

(Free-riders burst out in laughter. We all are reminded of Deepthi’s “heellllaaaaa” on phone. We totally understand the agony that Deepthi’s recruiting head had to face and he/she is perfectly justified in keeping the phone down. May be, it’s not the fees debate, it’s just Deepthi driving his/her reaction!)

Oik: Wot the hell? These booshtaards don’t understand the implications of this decision. I spent some time in US and there students from best of schools actually go out and give interviews. So, charging 1 lakh is not a lot and insti must do it. Wot the hell…

Deepthi: Oik, you don’t understand the consumer’s point of view. In all the surveys I have done for projects on campus and at work, my greatest input has been to prove that customers are lying about their preferences. Similarly, companies might say that they will pay, but eventually they will not… Aaai aaam pained by this decision…

Daph: What do you mean by they will not pay? I will Kung-Foo them and get the payment out! I might be getting old, but there is still enough to kick a few recruiters out! Just like I recently scared my boss to death…

Peepu: I think we are deviating a bit away from the main discussion. Being in an entrepreneurship environment, I know how important it is to focus on right things. Do you guys have any sense of financial impact this decision would have?

Boopos: Yeah, I think we should do that. Infact, I will do it tonight. Today seems easy. I should finish my official work early today, by 3am, one hour before my normal time. So, in that hour, I will make an excel model and run different simulations and scenarios for impact of 97 variables including interest rate and exchange rate fluctuations on fees income of placecom and the resulting valuation. I will code a macro for this and when you guys receive the file, simply click the run button. I should send this out by 4am.

(trinnng trinnng… trinnng trinnng…looks like someone just got a call. Oh, it’s Candy with his psued “hello” on phone. He blushes and says “yeah, sure, this evening sounds perfect to spend some quality time together on this”… and rest of us are like… “dude… kya crack maara hai!” He finishes the call and is back to the discussion. To break the anxiety (and jealousy?) surrounding the placecom room, we asked Candy… “ehh… bandi?”… and our man nods in disapproval… “again a call from my boss… chutti pe bhi he wants to have a conference call to discuss the slides… uski to @#&**@^#…” to get back the discussion on track, Candy pitches in with his 2 cents…)

Candy: I will think about the whole situation from buy and sell side point of view. In the recent deal that I had worked on, we supported our client on raising funds for the acquisition that they had decided to go ahead with. So, if the need be, I can help the recruiters raise funds for the wimwi recruitment process. It should be fairly straight forward, after all this doesn’t even look close to a deal of billion dollars. Tell you what, I will actually not spend my time and energy on this, I will ask a new fachchi in company to take care of this.

Peepu: That is a valid point Candy… I think you are right.

Daph: But, there is a chance that companies might make us sign a bond in return, given the high levels of “job switching” that is going on these days…

(I was like chilling out in one corner of the discussion table… I looked at everyone else… and it struck me…they all had chipped in, everyone had put in some CP or the other… ohhh crap, I haven’t said a word till now. What would fellow-free-riders think of me? That I don’t even have a point of view? I will not let this happen. The setting is perfect for a consult CP… I need to show the vision that I have for placecom…I gather all my thoughts to put a consult CP)

Me: Firstly, thanks everyone for all your views. This was a very “insightful” discussion that would go a long way in enhancing our differentiation as wimwi placecom freeriders. But, I can’t believe we have gone through the entire discussion without slides. I think, we need 2 circles at the top of slide, overlapping with a triangle in the middle and then a solid rectangle at the bottom of the slide to support our vision. Then we need to consider the synergies and the factors that would feed into creating sustainable competitive advantage for wimwi placecom in the medium to long term. Once we have envisioned the new placecom with new fees structure, it is critical to get a buy-in from various stake holders. One key question that we need to answer is: Is collecting fees the core of our placecom strategy? If not, shouldn’t we be looking to add value to our core verticals like building sustainable relationships with recruiters? My view to the entire puzzle surrounding the fees issue is that the answer probably depends on the adjacent externalities and the resulting internal fit! We are talking about a potential paradigm shift here!

(There was silence in the room again. I was like… wow, I have proved myself to be a stud!... look at all of them, they didn’t follow anything, total lack of vision I would say… ehhh… sudden change in configuration of the room… oh noo… another typical ending to placecom meeting as Boopos screamed out… Tharki ko bumps!!!...)

Disclaimer: The above post in no way supports or opposes Institute's decision to change the recruitment fees structure. This post is purely for entertainment and any other conclusion resulting out of this post would be purely coincidental. In any case, free-riders are only a minority subset of Placecom 2005 and therefore do not represent the batch's point of view on this topic!

India’s team for World Cup 2007

The countdown has begun! We are 38 days away from the world cup. Amidst the excitement surrounding the event, most teams are in final stages of getting the 15 on paper for the grand tournament. So, what’s going to be our team like? Our selectors have 2 weeks in their pockets before they get down to naming the team.

India’s 3-1 win over West Indies did answer a few questions. Here is what the skeleton of my team would look like for the world cup:

(2) Ganguly to open with Uthappa
(3) Dravid, Tendulkar, Yuvraj select themselves
(1) Extra batsman or bowler depending on conditions
(1) Dhoni, an automatic choice again
(1) Agarkar: Has been consistent enough to be a certainty
(2) Kumble and Harbhajan, both should play in West Indies
(1) Zaheer Khan, again has well done well enough though would need a back-up

So, we have 9-10 players who would play every match.

Before moving on to the other 5 who should board the flight to Caribbean, quick comments on two senior players of the side. Tendulkar’s century yesterday would do his confidence a world of good, apart from getting his one-day statistics back on track. His average is again back to “above 44”! In the last few weeks, there were a few statements made by so-called cricketing gurus that in my view were totally uncalled for, however this aggressive knock should shut all criticism against Tendulkar. With the form he is getting to, World Cup could get exciting, even for Australia.

A couple of months ago, we would have never imagined Ganguly to feature the above list. But, he has made a terrific come back, would go down as one of the greatest fight backs in the history of cricket. I have been and I am a Ganguly fan. Despite this, in my view, Ganguly was out of the team for all right reasons. There was never a question mark on his talent – it was more to do with his attitude. Now, he is back with a bang, looking a lot more focused with no airs surrounding him about being the ex-captain or the Prince of Kolkata! Let’s hope Ganguly continues to perform, a consistent Ganguly is a must for India’s chances at the World Cup.

Back to the team selection, the contenders for the other 5 slots are:

Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Sreeshant, Dinesh Karthik, Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Gambhir and Ramesh Powar.

I am still not sure if Sehwag should be counted in the scheme of things. Just like Ganguly a year down the time line, with Sehwag it is again not a question of his ability or technique. It is the attitude and focus that is missing. Selectors should probably give him 1 or 2 matches against Sri Lanka and observe his attitude on the field, not the number that appears on the score card eventually. I would much rather see a determined Sehwag scoring a fighting 30-40 than an attempt at a run-a-ball flamboyant 50.

I would include Pathan for the balance that he gets to the team, with Munaf Patel and Sreeshant as back up bowlers if India decides to go in with 3-4 pace bowlers. Karthik would be the 14th in my selection list and for 15th, it would all depend on the question around Sehwag. Otherwise Raina should probably make the cut.

Let’s see how the home series against Sri Lanka turns out to be. The team should now stop experimenting (other than a chance to Sehwag probably) and play consistent cricket. Wishing team India all the very best for the World Cup!

Little boxes, little boxes...

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

…a song by Malvina Reynolds – looks like I am a big fan of Malvina Reynolds, right?

Well, that is however far from the reality. I have known ‘Reynolds’ as a pen brand, I have vague memories of ‘Reynolds number’ from my CDC classes, but Malvina Reynolds... I had little clue about, till I ‘googled’ for ‘little boxes lyrics’.

Okay, with a rather complicated, convoluted and nonsensical introduction to this post, let me jump to the topic directly. This post is inspired by what I would call as the advertisement of the year (in my books, based on sample set of very few advertisements that I have seen in the recent past. I see very little of TV barring cricket matches!). As you would have guessed by now, we are talking about ‘Maruti Zen Estilo’ advertisement. Two parts to this post flowing out from the title – one being Maruti Sukuki and its latest offering Zen Estilo and the other being an outlook to the exciting times awaiting the Indian small car industry – little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky…

Revival of Maruti’s fortunes

Zen was first launched in India in mid 1990s. I have personally never been a Zen fan – to me, it has always been an over-priced car. Yes, it had the engine power, sophistication and smoothness, yes, it had a bit more of space than a 800, it did look a bit better than a boxy 800, but all factors combined, in my books, Zen was nowhere close to being worth the price tag attached. However, the new Zen Estilo seems different – the styling and designing being the most significant changes.

Within 10 days of launch, the tall boy design had attracted 10,000 bookings and this figure must have gone up substantially since then. It is fairly well positioned with the VX version being close to 4.1 Lakhs on-road Chennai. I didn’t get a chance to take a test drive, so will reserve my comments till I get an opportunity to get behind the wheels, but it does look like a car that’s going to sell a lot.

Let’s zoom-out the camera and shift our focus to Maruti as a company now – with the controversy surrounding the ownership structure behind, Maruti has looked a totally different company, introducing new products and aggressively increasing its capacity in a bid to fight back its decreasing market share. 2006 was characterized by Alto becoming the largest selling car in India, very successful introduction of Swift, a new look lower priced Esteem and then the promising launch of Zen Estilo. Interestingly, Maruti Engineers were involved with Suzuki’s global team in designing Swift which has been a huge success globally. Furthermore, Estilo is almost a 100% Maruti product, with engineers in India renovating the model with very little support from the parent company. It does look like Maruti has started to stamp its authority with these significant developments and I will not be too surprised if Maruti would become Suzuki’s biggest plant, overtaking capacity in Japan, in the early part of next decade. Currently, Maruti has an installed capacity of close to 0.6 million, while Suzuki globally is close to 2.2 millon mark. Maruti accounts for ~25% of global Suzuki sales and this figure is bound to go up. In comparison, Hyundai India has a capacity 0.3 million, soon to be expanded to 0.6 million.

Small Car Industry

The story of Indian small car industry dates back to the time when Maruti 800 was first introduced. Since then, this segment (industry definition being category A and B cars) has grown to become the largest segment in India, while globally Category C cars lead the way (Accent, Esteem, Ikon, Indigo, etc). While all through, new models have been introduced, old ones upgraded, the industry in my view has been through two critical phases and the third one is just around the corner:

1. Early 1980s: Introduction of Maruti 800: A fuel efficient, reliable new product with low cost of ownership and modern features – it was surely a big jump from Ambassadors and Fiats that Indian market had then
2. 1998: For most part of 1990s, the small car industry developed and reached scale volumes, a few new products were introduced (including Zen), but it was all much the same till 1998 when Santro, Matiz and Indica hit the road (these cars really did hit the road running)! It created a totally different segment, providing customers with all the features of mid-size cars in a fuel efficient, compact car. In years to follow, Category B became the largest segment with Santro and Indica emerging as the winners.
3. 2008 and beyond: In about a year and a half, the industry would once again go through a dramatic change. While the previous change was all about offering an enhanced product, this is going to be pure scale game. Yes, I am talking about the Tata 1 Lakh car!

As of now, Maruti 800 is probably the cheapest car in the world. Tata Motors, with reasonable auto design experience and know-how, is trying to beat that by driving the cost down further. I have followed the development of this car closely both from technical and business perspective over the last couple of years. When Tata Motors first came up with the idea of 1 lakh car, my reaction was “wow, wouldn’t that sell like crazy?” Since then, like everyone else, I have had doubts about the success of this ambitious project. It is difficult to get the pure manufacturing variable cost of a car to under a Lakh. Add to it, the amortization of fixed costs, the margin for economic rate of return, taxes at various stages, dealer margin and the puzzle does get challenging.

For all I have read about this project, Tata One-Lakh Car would in all probability have the following features:

1. A bit smaller than Indica, though big enough to seat 4-5
2. 30 bhp, 700cc engine – probably 5-10 bhp lesser than ideal
3. Would meet safety and emission standards
4. Design would in all probability be a bit sleek and not too boxy
5. Automatic transmission with engine at the rear
6. Basic model would roll-out without doors

On a standalone basis, looks reasonable, rather attractive for the magic price tag of Rs One Lakh. But let’s consider the choices that consumers would have to determine the success of this project:

1. Maruti 800 sells at Rs. 2 Lakhs, but apparently, the cost of production is much lower than the final price (achieved due to scale and old fully depreciated dies). Maruti could easily slip the price tag down to ~1.5 Lakh. Given this likely scenario, Tata 1 Lakh car would need to match Maruti 800 as a product to have any chance of getting to the volumes that they desire.
2. The biggest challenge would be the 2nd hand market - to beat a 3 year old Maruti 800, a 4 year old Alto (now that’s not easy) and a 8 year old Santro
3. The car might sell, could do really well, but for Tata to make money on this project, the annual sales need to touch close to a million. That’s 3-4 times the market currently occupied by 800 and Alto.

So, where is this battle heading? Can Tata Motors repeat the success that they have had with Indica and other models or is this project a little too ambitious? Although I have little data and knowledge to back my claims, here is my best guess to the final outcome of this project:

1. The basic version would cost ~1.2 lakhs. This version would be a complete car, however without proper doors. Tata motors needs to be creative with the door part. The minimum expectation would be to have very basic plastic doors instead of an open air compartment. I would hate to see a 4 wheel auto rickshaw as the basic version
2. However, for most practical purposes, the much awaited car would cost ~1.4-1.5 lakhs with proper doors. I think it would look a lot better than a Maruti 800 and with a 660 cc engine, should have a fuel economy of ~25-30 km per litre
3. Tata Motors needs to be clever with positioning of the car. The basic model is a must to get people interested. Perhaps, all advertising campaigns should revolve around the basic model – the true one Lakh car (in 2003 rupees, accounting for inflation) trying to fulfill the aspirations of millions!
4. Once the customers walk in to the show room, show them the benefits of buying a complete car priced at 1.4 Lakhs. What otherwise looks like a difference of INR 30 K, becomes much less significant on a per month EMI basis. People wouldn’t mind paying extra Rs 500-800 a month for safety, comfort and the feel of owning a full-fledged car!
5. Will Tata sell a million units a year? I can’t answer that. However, I wouldn’t bet my money on anything more than 5 Lakh units in the first few years. At some stage infrastructure constraints would come into play. Can our cities take the extra traffic?
   

Well, sounds like really exciting times at Tata Motors. Let’s wait and see where this phase of auto industry leads us to. In the meanwhile, I would go back to the song I started the post with…

“Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky…”

… as it looks for now, little boxes could well be eventually made of ticky tacky to further drive down cost!