Chintadhara - a thought process

It was quite a while I went to Bangalore last. That too last time had office work so did not get any time to catch up with friends. This Christmas was a long weekend with Monday being holiday due to Christmas. So I was eagerly planning to escape from Chennai. That's when Bangalore folks called up and said they were planning for a trip for the weekend. But even that did not happen. But then there are so many things to do in and around bangalore. We decided for a 1-day trip to Sivanasamudram (aka Sivasamudram) , a falls about 120km from Bangalore, on Saturday. Sunday we roamed around the city with lunch stop at M. G. Road and wrap with a Bhagam Bhag night show at Innovative. Christmas day start with visit to the Infant Jesus Church and I winded-up my trip with a visit to the Forum . Here are the photos of my trip ... link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album27

Got this testimonial on Orkut from one my ex- HCL colleague (I am still with HCL) this morning. And it was a very pleasant surprise. I remember having many short discussions with him on various topics during tea-breaks, snacks time and after office hours; each one of which was a lot of fun. "Saptarshi !!! a man with vision, cool dude....you can talk to him on any sub and he will have his firm point to substantiate his stand. One of the few guys I have seen among the youth lot to be more sesnsible. cool attitude, sharp smile and his sense of humour...make him more lively......(buddy I have done a good selling ain't I?) cheers man !!" Do not know how of it is actually what I am; but surely a good note to start my week with. Thanks Manick! :))

Say it luck or anything, I was waiting to go for Dhoom-2 for a long time and finally this weekend the wait was over ... twice. Something like the double-premiere of Sahara One. About the movie? Nothing much to say. Girls, bikes, stunts and music that was the USP of the first edition and same is the case here. Though he second half predominantly is a love story which causes it to drag a bit. Stunts are really cooler in this one, especially those by Hrithik . Bollywood has surely matured quite a lot in terms of how the new and copied stunts are executed and used in the movie. If they are planning a series then I think all Bollywood actors will be wishing to get the thief’s role, because the entire movie is made with the thief in focus and rest others supporting him. Abhishek did a good job with whatever he got, but for some funny reason he forgot to go to gym for the movie or maybe when your wife is pregnant you should also put on weight just to give her company. One thing where this o...

I am referring to the voting for the new 7 wonders of the world at the N7W website . For those to whom this is breaking news, there is a voting going on to choose the new 7 wonders of the world. The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07. The N7W is on a world tour visiting each of the candidate wonders. They are scheduled to be at Taj Mahal in December, 2006. You can place your vote online. In India, we have an alternate option of voting through sms . So go ahead and vote for Taj Mahal !

Yesterday night my roomie and I reached home around 9pm; I was in bit early and was watching Shiva on TV. He came and asked shall we go for a movie. Two movies were pending - Casino Royale and Dhoom-2 , but I was not thinking as he was ill and just came in after a drive. I am always ready to go out, and since he brought up the topic, so get-set-go. The nearest theater, Ega , was showing Dhoom-2 . We decided to go for it. We knew getting tickets will not be a problem as you can definitely get tickets in 'not-to-be-mentioned-ways' . Just when we starting my roomie's friend called in and said that today's rate in Ega is Rs. 200/- (extremely costly!), but it would have been a bigger tragedy if we would have dropped our plan then. His friend was at Woodlands , another theater, trying to get tickets for Casino Royale . We told him to get two more for us. Luckily he got the tickets and we saved lot of bucks (Rs.140/- per head). I had got quite a varied feedback for Casino Roy...

Don - The Chase Begins Again , directed by Farhan Akhtar , is a remake of the 1978 film, Don . But I guess remake is not the exact term to explain it; 'adaptation' will go better. The two films are essential same in their storyline but are still different due to the tweaks in the plot by Farhan. I will not get into the story or the details of the tweaks, maybe some of you are still planning to catch the DON. But I would love give my take of the movie. The 1978 superhit boasted of legends in its star cast - Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Pran, Iftekhar, Helen. The storyline and the charm of such greats was enough for it to be an excellent movie. And when talk about remaking such a movie; its bound to evoke lot of high expectations. And I would say it was clever on Farhan's part to change the plot a bit. He made changes in two fulcrum points of the plot which does brings out a total different aspect. In some ways though I find the new plot similar to Face/Off , a 1997 film di...

Launched the beta version of my homepage! Many parts might not work properly, sorry for the inconvenience. I would be very happy if you give comments regarding the issues/suggestions. Look-wise there is not much difference in the beta edition yet, in fact in some cases the content might be bit older. Major difference is the way the page is made. This time I am exploring the AJAX technology and using it to have dynamic content. My two-pointed objective in this exercise - understand AJAX and simplify the website management. I am planning the release date around the New Year. Beta homepage url: http://beta.saptarshi.info/ Normal homepage url: http://www.saptarshi.info/

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." -- Aristotle

My 10-day luxurious stay at home ends today, tomorrow I have go back to my daily routine in Chennai. Its not that I do not enjoy my life in Chennai, but still home is home ... sweetest! This time I came almost after a year. If you ask me how was my stay? I will use adjectives like awesome, great, mind-blowing, etc. But if you ask what all I did while I was here? Chances are I would look blankly at you. I actually do not do any constructive things while at home, I prefer becoming the laziest person on this planet. My activities include eating, dozing, watching TV, irritating mom, fighting with dad, etc. If I get time after all that then catch up with my mails and friends on chat. 10 days back when I came, I was looking forward to a long vacation. Today it seems it was too short! :(

This time I was at home on the occasion of Deepawali and Kali Pujo, after many years. And interesting fact is that I had mentioned last time I came home that I would come on Diwali next time, but had forgotten all about it. I think this what we call destiny. Here are few pics which I took with my parents at our home in NTPC-Kawas and Kali Pujo celebration at NTPC-Jhanor, about 3hrs from Kawas. If you have problems with the slideshow below please use the album link: http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/slideshow.php?set_albumName=album26

I am writing this after one year and eight months of leaving NCST in Feb 2005. At that time I did not have my own blog site, but I used to regularly read the post on Raman sir's blog . It used to slowly motivate me to have one of my own and finally in the winters of 2005 I laid the foundation stone for this blog. My first post was dated Sunday, December 18, 2005. About 2 months later I started 'khichuri' along with Khuman Ngakpa , which is rather a collection than a blog. So the question is what prompted me to type this post now? The reason is recent post by Raman sir. Encouraged by him many ncstians of the present batch have started their own blog and started it with a post on their experiences in ncst till now. After reading through all those narratives, I too felt like narrating my experience. For some interesting reasons my batch is considered among the worst batches the institute have had, though I guess it was a beautiful patch of our lives. But its better if I start ...

I have believed technology to be a double-edged sword. Technology is good or bad; it’s the way we use it. My focus in this blog is on the free Google Earth service from our good old enabler Google . I remember when Google had launched the service; there was a lot of hue and cry about blocking it as it could be a possible security threat. Because it shows the satellite images of the strategic facilities and it might be used by the wrong persons. There was quite a debate then but luckily Google Earth survived it to be used by us to find our house, school, college and what not. I remember getting lot of forwards form my friends with Google Earth images. Few days back I came across one of the news which really made happy with the way Google Earth is being used. It is related to the SEZ controversy in Maharashtra. The government is trying to get lands from the farmers at cheaper rates saying that their lands are not fertile land. That’s when farmers turned to Google Earth to use its satelli...

An important aspect in starting a new initiative or joining an initiative new is to getting the full information about it. But this is the simplest thing which we always somehow miss. And it can lead to lot of troubles in the end which could have been avoided. The following piece highlights the point in funny way. Got it from one my colleagues in a forward. A new vacuum cleaner salesman knocked on the door on the first house of the street. A tall lady answered the door. Before she could speak, the enthusiastic salesman barged into the living room and opened a big black plastic bag and poured all the cow droppings onto the carpet. "Madam, if I could not clean this up with the use of this new powerful vacuum cleaner, I will EAT all this ...!" exclaimed the eager salesman. "Do you need chili sauce or ketchup with that" asked the lady. The bewildered salesman asked, "Why, madam?" "We just moved in, & there's no electricity in the house!"

'Can we ask question about something unknown to us?' This friday night I was in office winding up my last few activities for the weekend and looking forward for the long durga puja weekend. It was then one of my friends popped up on the messenger. We were having a nice chat about my job and other miscellaneous topics. In all that I asked him to tell about something about himself which I didn’t know. And he asked me to anything. And I replied back 'how can I ask about something which I don’t know?' . And this is the conversation that followed ... my friend: Hmm, logical logic.. my friend: But that's exactly why the concept of questions came into being, rit? me: no my friend: no? my friend: Enlighten me, then me: u ask question when you have doubt about something known to you but you dont understand it fully me: u can nvr ask question on a thing unknow to you O:-) my friend: Nope, not 'never'.. How does a child discover & learn things, when he's growin...

It's again that time of the year for which ev ery bengali waits for since the previous years dusshera. Today is shoshti ('shasthi'), the day when the Durga Pujo begins. In good old days when I was a student it was a day when 5 days of fun used to begin. Spending time at pandal with friends. How can I forget the famous bengali adda . But now things have a changed. Today I am sitting in office working like any other day and same for tomorrow. Though looking forward for the long weekend to celebrate the pujo. This is my second pujo in Chennai. Last time I celebrated with my roomie and his friends. We went to few pandals. This time round though he is not there, he is in kolkata. So this time planning to join my cousin dada o boudi along with masshi o meshomoni. Its a full house there. This is also the first pujo for dada's son. Wishing you all too a very happy and rocking pujo!! Bolo bolo joy Durga mai!!

Dont be surprised with the title I am not going to discuss my love story here. In fact I should first have one to discuss about it. Anyways thats a different tale; maybe I will write about it some other day. Today's post is to tell my experience with the movie titled "Pyaar ke Side/Effects". A small introduction to the movie. Lead protagonists are Rahul Bose and Mallika Sherawat. Movie is about there 'pyaar'. Rahul is shown analyzing the various 'side-effects' associated with different stages of love. And then you a small side stories of Rahul's roomie and his brother-in-law. Both of them are like two extremes. First guy is of the 'un-marriageable' lot and second one belongs to the married community. Rahul is somewhere in- between; he has a girlfriend who has proposed to marry him but he is not very sure what to do... for rest of the story watch the movie yourself :) My motive behind this post is not to tell the story, there is nothing in that....

After a long time I watched a really great movie. It’s loaded with lots of laughter and meaning. One good thing which the director/produced did was not to make a sequel. Sequels sometimes tend to be bit boring but a series a good thing as each time its something new. The best thing in both the older and latest edition is the Munna-Circuit antics. I somehow like Circuit more; Arshad Warsi is too good as Circuit. The kidnapping sequence is best kidnapping sequence I have seen ever. I think real life 'bhai log' will get some interesting ideas after seeing it. Apart from the fun and laughter in the Munnabhai movies, I like them for the social messages they deliver. Most of the points are very simple yet most of us do miss them in life. This time round it tried to show the Gandhian way of life in Munna-style. Usually a movie about Gandhian values can’t expect to be a hit in current times but when to show it as 'Gandhi-giri' it does catch your attention. Hats off to the whole...

9/11/2001. The date which marks the turning point in war against terrorism. In some ways you can draw parallel with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during the 2nd World War which brought USA into the war. But unfortunately the difference starts there. While on the older instance the active entry of USA changed the course of history; same doesn’t seems to be true for the present edition. We have seen so many wars against the terror groups in last five years, but we are yet to see any change in the ground realities. What we have achieved in last five years is a world which constant lives under a threat of terror attack. In name security concerns we have increased scrutiny and restrictions on the common citizen across the globe. There are increased instances of human rights violation in name of security precautions. The line of difference is so thin between a possible threat and an actual threat that the excess by the security agencies can safely hide behind it. End of the day we seem...

That's the most interesting piece of news I have come across in near past. I thought promotions and demotions were part of only corporate life, but now even the planets have to go through the same. Pluto's title of a 'planet' got endangered when a number of bodies like Xena or Sedna in space beyond Pluto. These bodies also claimed for the status of planets. And like what would happen in a corporate organization instead of promoting all of them; the management (read "Leading astronomers") decide to strip the Pluto of its title and call it a 'dwarf planet' along with others. To us it really doesn't matters whether the Pluto is called a planet or not. It will still be there as it was for so many years, going around the Sun. But I was wondering what happens to other sciences like astrology which were based on the fact that we have 9 planets. Also I would like to quote here a piece about the discoverer of the 'planet' Pluto ... "Pluto, whic...

It has been a while since I posted something on this blog. Maybe got busy with other things in life. Not sure what to write, but wanted to write something. Quite a few thoughts are criss-crossing in the mind. Let's see what they shape up into. Then I can write something meaningful here. Till they keep njoying life...

If your computer is facing ventilation problems. All you need to do is to follow this ...

During my tour to Salem, Yercaud and Kodaikanal, I did lot of experiments with my skill with the lens. But the most of the photos taken by me in which someone was posing were not that good. That job was better done by Sara, Praveen and Aravind. But when it came to high-speed photogarphy, I think I was born with the talent. Even Praveen was appreciating my high-speed photos [Sara & Aravind will know the importance of that ;) :)]. Here are few of my exploits ... Special thanks to Praveen & Sara otherwise I could have never discovered this. My fingers are iching for next chance. Hey guy, when are we going out next??

Just back from a jumbo tour of Salem, Yercaud and Kodaikanal. As often I dont have words to describe it but it was no else a dream seen with open eyes. Whatever we saw was too beautiful to forget. We wanted that those sight stay with us after we are back in Chennai and we did just that. We had a digicam with one 256MB card and one 1GB card. So we made full use of it and lots and lots of photos ... final number was around 1300+. In the process we exhausted 32 Duracell batteries and 4 Everready batteries. But we never had the realization about the amount of pics we were taking during the trip. There it was like point and shoot anything and everything. Our entire collection was 2 CD huge. And when I was selecting the ones which I wanted in my album, the number crossed 600+. So uploading them became a small issue; but that job is now successfully completed. Checkout the photos ... Salem & Yercaud - http://saptarshide.myphotoalbum.com/ view_album.php?set_albumName=album15 Kodaikanal - h...

In nursery I read a line "early to bed, early to rise; makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" Is that true? I do not know. Never got a chance. I am one who to go to bed at early in the morning and rise late in the day. I am like the late-city edition of the newspaper which comes out late so that all the news of the previous day can be included. In my school day I was forced to rise early. Then also I used to sleep till the time after which it would become impossible to attend school. That too after mom and dad used to bug me for about an hour. Then came the hostel days in college (SRK Hostel @ JMI, New Delhi). I do not remember a single day when I had breakfast at hostel mess. Me and my roomie were equally good at rising late (but I think I was a bit better). But we used to have four different alarms set, still earliest time was 10:00am. I improved on that at NCST, B'lore. Due to that appearing for the quizzes was a big headache. But there I had a genuine reason; we used ...

Everyone in their lives would have had crushes, and me too had my share of crushes. But, it didn't take much time for each of them to turn to crashes. None of my crushes took off, or probably they crashed even before they took off !! Today, when I look back, I cant manage but to have a laugh. My first crush was on Miss R. I was in my tenth then. We happened to speak only once. It was when I had offered her a coke. She refused to have it and the very next moment I gulped it down. I still cant forget the dumbstruck look on her face. A few days later, she started going around with one of my classmates. They used to go for wonderful evening walks, Miss R, my classmate and her doggy. Unfortunately (fortunately for me), the affair didn't last too long. On one such romantic walk of theirs, my classmate was bitten by the doggy. He brought up the question: Its me or the dog......she chose the dog !!! The news gave me sadistic pleasure. I was in a co-ed school for my 11th-12th. I got ver...

"kunjam tamil terium" means "I know Tamil little bit". It has been little over a year since I shifted my residence to Chennai (erstwhile Madras). Tamil is the first language of the city and without it one can not get along in city. English is also used but is limited to offices, big shops, theaters, malls, etc. Day to day interaction has to be in Tamil which makes it essential to learn the language. Tamil was very different from the languages already known to me, namely Bengali, Hindi and English. So I found it very difficult to grasp. But as it is said necessity is the best teacher. Today I can say I know a bit of the language, though a conversation is still like a river flowing in front of me. I can get some water from it but cannot get the whole river. The credit of whatever I learn till goes to my colleagues at office, who took the pains of translating me things which went over my head. I will like to recall few of the words I need to use on a daily basis... evl...

The table I am referring here is the interview table. Little more than a year back I was preparing for sitting on the other side of the table (interviewee side). Though there is a bit of lie in that, I never used to prepare for any interview. I liked to handle it as a extempore. Recently I was asked to sit on interviewer’s side of the table. This I round I was bit anxious, since I will have to be the driver. It cannot be that the other person is asking questions I am just replying to those. I have to ask questions and verify if the answers are correct. I prepared some questions on the domains I had to take interview using the good old Google and studied them the night before (same thing what my prospective candidates would be doing for their preparation). But the hardest part was to interview people one after another for the whole day and that too for two continuous day. I was worried about how to decide whether a particular person suitable to selected. My main concern was not to selec...

After a long time, first time since I left NCST, all of us were at the same place on the same time. We were missing some who could make it due to the pressures of life. Unfortunately it did not start as per the original plan but thats life. But as its said all's well that ends well . We were sitting in our official taxi, though it was bigger taxi this time, with the good old kannadi driver at the wheels. Rest is a long story which you can see in the photo album ... hoping for another one soon with all absentees ...

Vivek Pradhan wasn't a happy man. Even the plush comfort of the First Class air-conditioned compartment of the Shatabdi Express couldn't cool his frayed nerves. He was the Project Manager and still not entitled to air travel. It was not the prestige he sought, he had tried to reason with the admin guy, it was the savings in time. A PM had so many things to do! He opened his case and took out the laptop, determined to put the time to some good use. "Are you from the software industry sir," the man beside him was staring appreciatively at the laptop. Vivek glanced briefly and mumbled in affirmation, handling the laptop now with exaggerated care and importance as if it were an expensive car. "You people have brought so much advancement to the country sir. Today everything is getting computerized." 'Thanks," smiled Vivek, turning around to give the man a detailed look. He always found it difficult to resist appreciation. The man was young and stocky li...

Ravi and Hari were working for a firm. One day their promotion list was announced. Only Ravi got promoted. Hari was disappointed and asked his manager why only Ravi got promoted when both of them had done same equally well. His manager said he will give his justification for the decision by a small exercise. He asked Hari to meet him outside the office after the lunch. After the lunch Hari met their manager. The manager asked Hari to cross the street and found out what the lady across the street was selling. Hari came back and told the manager she was selling apples. Now the manager asked him to find out what is the cost of the apples. Hari went again and asked the price of the apples and replied that the apples cost approximately Rs15. The manager asked him to enquire what the price of the best apples is; he went again and informed the manager that the best variety is Rs17. Now the manager sent a word for Ravi and asked to check out what the lady across the street was selling. Ravi c...

Every company normally faces one common problem of high employee turnout ratio. People are leaving the company for better pay, better profile or simply for just one reason 'pak gaya'. This article might just throw some light on the matter...got it as a forward email... Early this year, Rahul, an old friend who is a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of this company, charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Rahul was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined. "It's a real hig...

Everything in life has two aspects to it - the bright side and the dull side. I wrote the brighter side first as we usually forget to see that side. In our day to day life we have to face events and situations which are not in accordance with our expectations. And the human tendency is to see it in a negative light, and spoil our mood and performance. But surely every single incident in life has a positive side along with the negative side. It depends on the person which side he/she chooses to look at. It is like "life treats you the way you want it to treat you". The negative side is there just to make us aware of our threats, not to overshadow the brighter side. But we choose to get stuck with the negative aspect and the prime reason for this is that we are afraid of failure. Failures are never the end of the road; they are just a milestone in our path to success. Life time and again presents us with threats and we mostly tend to surrender before them. Because that’s the ea...

"Can we believe the net?" or "Should internet we censored?" or "Should government agencies step in to regulate the internet?" In last few days I came across these topics in various forms of media. So thought of keying down my views (might be bit confusing :) ). To me all of them are quite interrelated and the basic question to be asked is - how much should we believe the information we get on the internet. Today many of us fall back on the internet to get any kind of information. It’s the cheapest, fastest and most accessible source of information. I will not say we do not get genuine information from the internet, but that is limited to a small set of sites for which we know owners. But there are billions of sites for which we have no idea about their owners or who is behind the content in them. But still many such sites might be useful for our information quest and who knows they can become a trusted source in the long run. Anybody can put any kind of co...

Lots of things (people, scenarios, conditions, etc) undergo change around us and we wonder why the change is happening. We are too tuned into our routine life and we do not like to change. Anything new is welcomed mostly with some sort of apprehensions. We try our level best to resist the change because accepting the change will require us to come out of out of our comfort zone. Above case is applicable to the majority... But I have seen a minority which deals with change bit differently. As a matter of fact I can divide the group into two sets - one which aligns with changes in the system and the other which changes before the change. The first set is the one which is least affected by any change i.e. they do not have any negative as well as positive impact; they simply survive the change. The second set is the one which caught my attention, the one which changes before the change. I would like to clarify the phrase "changing before the change". It’s not about undergoing a c...

(Got this one as one of the many forwards I get daily ) An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty. He asks one of his new students to stand and..... Prof: So you believe in God? Student: Absolutely, sir. Prof: Is God good? Student: Sure. Prof: Is God all-powerful? Student : Yes. Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill.But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm? (Student is silent.) Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again,young fella. Is God good? Student :Yes. Prof: Is Satan good? Student : No. Prof: Where does Satan come from? Student : From...God... Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world? Student : Yes. Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct? Student : Yes. Prof: So who created evil? (Student does not answer.) Prof: Is there...

Dr. Gopalakrishnan succeeds Mr. Ratan Tata as Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., the holding company for many of the Tata blue chips like Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Voltas etc. Possibly he is the first Non-Tata person to head the Tata Empire. Read this article by Dr. G - it is really interesting. The grass isn't always greener on the other side!! Move from one job to another, but only for the right reasons. It's yet another day at office. As I logged on to the marketing and advertising sites for the latest updates, as usual, I found the headlines dominated by 'who's' moving from one company to another after a short stint', and I wondered, why are so many people leaving one job for another? Is it passé now to work with just one company for a sufficiently long period? Whenever I ask this question to people who leave a company, the answers I get are: "Oh, I am getting a 200% hike in salary"; "Well I am jumping three levels in my de...