Taare Zameen Par...

I watched TZP over the weekend on television. The experience this time was totally different as compared to what I felt when I watched in for the first time two years ago in theater.

The film is about a kid suffering from Dyslexia. The entire world including his parents fail to understand his illness and believe that the young boy is making excuses for not studying. The film showcases how our culture drives our young ones towards scorecard performance and how the weight of expectations haunts the next gen.

That time, I could co-relate to the protagonist Prof Nikumbh, played by Amir Khan, who finds out the boy's illness and then helps the boy overcome Dyslexia methodically. It made me feel a different kind of emotion where I felt the urge of helping out someone in need.

However, when I watched the movie last weekend, I could more relate to the parents of the young boy suffering from Dyslexia. I was almost in tears on more than one occasions during the movie. This emotionally weak side of me is usually subdued and thus, I was perplexed to see this side of me emerging frequently during the movie. Such vulnerability was not observed when I watched the movie two years ago. When I gave more thought to it, I realized that the difference was the fact that two years ago, my daughter was not born and I had not experienced parenthood. Now, when I watch this movie, the emotional outburst is from the new parent that lies within me.

I have always been emotionally attached to my family especially my wife but fatherhood is altogether a different emotion, a feeling at a different level.

I attempted, but realized that words can not describe this emotion!!

What's in a name?

When my daughter was born, my wife and I spent enormous amount of time deciding what should we name the little one. After a deliberation of 3-4 weeks and with kind suggestions (or should I say preferences) from close relatives, we concluded that her name would be 'Jui' - which means a flower.

It was just the other day, when the maid was busy in clean-up at our home and was uttering some stories about our neighbors. The maids are a great tool for social networking. You don't even need to sign-up to get the latest updates. A maid is like a walking news channel.

So, coming back to the story, the maid was uttering something which I typically ignore but somehow her reference to some numbers caught my attention. 303, 104, 406. Unconsciously, I started paying attention. She was mentioning that 201 was fighting with 301 and there was some trouble related to car parking area and 405 had punctured a tyre of the vehicle parked in his car park. It took me few minutes to figure out that with the numbers, she is actually referring to the apartment numbers. So, when 201 and 301 were fighting, it meant that Mrs Sharma and Mrs Kulkarni were at it. And 405 is same as Mr. Doshi.

I was amused at the simple nomenclature used by the maid. This naming convention has helped her reduce the complexity of remembering all the family names. With that, it struck me that when outside, the maid must be referring us as 303. So, when my daughter, Jui is playing, it would be referred as 303 is playing. When my wife goes out of town, the news channel would broadcast that 303 is out of town. So much effort we put in deciding name of our little one and here we are, re-learning the phrase - 'what's in a name?'

Terror attacks.. yet again

I don't want to add anything to what the Media has added (and repeated 100 times since yesterday) on the blast, the damage, political opinion and even what Bollywood actors think about this incident. I want to talk about how I feel after this incident.

I would have imagined, since I am 1000 miles away from from blast site and none of my close ones stay in Delhi, that the incident shouldn't really affect me apart from genuinely feeling sad about it. There were floods and natural calamities which our nation has faced before. Then I was really sad but somehow got on to my usual routine in a day or two.

But this incident seems different.

We can control the damage during natural calamities but there is no sure shot way to stop them. However, terror attacks are done on purpose and everyone in administration knows that there are more attacks to come, but nothing is being done. It seems that any tom, dick and harry can plan a terror attack and with almost certainty would be successful in carrying it out.

In Pakistan, there are terror attacks almost every other day and many lives are lost during these incidents. What must be a common Pakistani feeling? If we take out the frequency of incidents, is there any difference in our state and that of Pakistan?

The US faced a terror attack and they managed to beef up security and after 9/11, nothing close to a terror attack has taken place. The UK was rocked by London blasts, but now has recovered by taking concrete steps like installing CCVT cameras at every nook and corner of the city. When I was in London about a year ago, I was amazed at the level of the security that the state has managed to increase. Israel was once upon a time a target of such attack from extremist in Palestine and West bank - at least that was the case when I visited Israel in 2005. However, things are very different and in control now. So, what is it that we, the Indians, are waiting for?

It seems that our administration has lost the morality and have accepted that such things would keep happening. They have even devised a way to doze the anger that is surged after such incidents - ask NIA to investigate, lock up a few suspects, put a court case, involve CBI,.. ,.. ,.. Time flies by and the anger diminishes and nothing is done to avoid another such incident.

You know, what is the difference I am feeling this time round? It is the feeling of being helplessness !!

Dilbert - hats off to Scott

Why Dilbert is so popular? Because Scott manages to identify the core issues in corporate world and depict them using a few characters in a funny way. Almost everyone who is reading it feels that he/she is Dilbert and is being sucked up by the useless management and the equally useless colleagues. It is like someone is telling you what you are going through. One feels relief that someone understands what he is going through and at the same time laughs at the situation while looking at it from a third person's view.

I can relate to Dilbert almost 90% of the time. But, today, suddenly I realized that even my boss would think that he is the Dilbert and is being screwed by the management. Is this a never ending chain?

Traveling again

Although not as much as I used to do, I have started traveling again.... my few trips in last couple of months are:


1. A single day trip to Bahrain - Business Trip
This was the 5th time I visited Bahrain. The trip was a last minute plan and I was visiting a prospect customer to get more insight about the requirements and expectations from the vendors. As I have quite a few friends in Bahrain, I traveled a day earlier and spent some time with them. The meeting with the customer went very well and we are progressing in the deal. 


2. Weekend road trip to Diveagar - Family Outing
I was itching to take Xylo for a long ride but at the same time had to restrict the travel to the needs of the youngest one (my daughter) and the oldest one (my mother) in my family. So, we decided to visit Diveagar, a beach town 160 Kms away from Pune city. The outing turned out to be a great refreshment and we all had a ball. 


3. A week long trip to Delhi/Noida - Business Trip
A prospect customer was visiting our facility in Noida and I, along with other team members reached Delhi 3 days before the actual visit to ensure that everything for the D-day is planned. Right from food to seating arrangement to security clearances to contents of our presentation, everything was looked into. The visit was successful and customer was happy with what was presented. We are in next level of discussions with the customer and hopefully, we close the deal soon.


4. A single day trip to Mumbai - Business Trip
Some organization level initiatives were to be discussed and me and some other senior members were participate in these discussions. Well, you know how the board room discussions are, so I am not elaborating. But to be honest, there were lot of positive takeaways from this discussion. Many of the participating members met each other for the first time and everyone got a chance to express his/her own view and listen to other's views. 


5. Three day road tour to Solapur and nearby temples - Family Outing
Another itch satisfied. Again, my takeaway from the trip was a ride in Xylo and my family got a chance to visit famous temples near Solapur. We covered 800Kms in 3 days and managed to visit 4 temples. Overall a very nice trip.

A couple of years later

Wow, I haven't written to this blog for a good length of time. I thought I would never return to write here but there is an urge in me to keep posting my thoughts to this blog. Let me start all over again...

So, what happened in this couple of years.. well, many things happened...

1. I have became a proud father of a baby girl. She is already 1.5 years old and one of the main reasons I couldn't post anything to this blog. Suddenly, 24 hours were not enough to be with her. :)

2. We shifted from Hyderabad to Pune. Although I will miss Hyderabad, I think it is a change for good. We are now close to our relatives, now are staying in our own house, the office is 1 Km away from home and my wife has resumed her job. Can I ask for any more?

3. We sold our 8 year old Tata Indica and now we have a new Mahindra Xylo. That is quite an upgrade. It also means that we are touring a lot. The car has already clocked 9K Kms. I love the Xylo!

4. I am preparing too many presentations. This numbered list is a direct impact of this fact.

So, this post attempts to articulate all the things that happened in last two years. I guess this might be an implicit effect of me studying for GMAT last year. :)

My Intro to Fatherhood

It is hard to describe how I feel right now and it will be evident by end of this writeup !!

I was always fascinated by a phenomenon called touch. I still remember the touch of my mother's hand when I am not well. Without a spoken word, the touch communicated all the care and the emotions like an electric pulse running from one individual to the other.
Another feeling of a touch which I can not seem to forget is that of my girlfriend who is now my wife. Touch of her hands used to say what a million words couldn't. When I am feeling low, I rest my head on her lap and she caresses her hand through my hair. The touch makes me forget all my worries, takes me to a higher level of confidence and gives me a feeling that no matter what happens, she is there for me. This feeling of belonging is second to none.

For last few months, my wife was staying with her parents. She was pregnant and needed good care and we relied on her parents to provide that. For those few months, I was like a free bird, watching TV till 3AM, playing sports whenever wished for, doing things just for myself. I knew that things would change after birth of our child but I would have never expected that things would be so different.
Last week, my wife and I were blessed with a baby girl. We have not yet decided a name for her but we keep calling her 'baby'. When I first saw her in the cradle, I did not feel much different. I was very happy that both, my wife and the child are safe and healthy. I stayed at my in-laws place for a couple of days and I saw my daughter growing up older by two days and it changed me completely.
I used to think of myself as a sturdy guy who does not get emotional. But in two days, I do not know what connected me to my daughter that when I was leaving her, I felt like crying. This feeling of going away from something that was mine was new to me. In last two days, I had felt that I was connected emotionally to my daughter through the touch. I loved her so much that at time if you ask me - what is the toughest task, my reply would be - to find anything as beautiful as her. I have still not overcome the sadness that has engrossed my mind and I long to get back to her as soon as possible.

I guess this emotion of missing someone you know for two days and forgetting the rest of the world is what they call 'fatherhood' !!
(P.S. : You must have guessed how difficult it is to describer how I feel right now !)

Travel Memories - Israel

I was fortunate to visit more than 10 countries in 5 continents. The lucky aspect was that no two countries were the similar in terms of economy, culture and development. With this variety, I thought I should write the experience and interactions I had during my stay in these diverse countries.

Let me start with the first foreign country I visited in my life, Israel. I was working for Amdocs, an company with headquarters in Israel. As soon as I joined a project, I was asked to visit Israel development center for a duration of a week. I was totally on top of the moon when I heard the news. This travel would have led me to many "firsts" in my life. First time visitng a foreign country, first time visiting an airport, first time boarding a plane, first time interaction with the world !! So, I was on cloud number 9 and was as excited as I can be. :)

So, the day arrived when I boarded my flight. Luckily I was accompanied by a colleague who was an experienced traveler. With his presence, the journey was smooth. The fact that the transit was in Ababa in Ethiopia would have concerned many travelers, but not me. :) By the time we reached Tel Aviv (Capital of Israel) airport, I had already clicked 400 snaps.

I was in Israel for 4 days and spent most of the time in the main city of Tel Aviv. The things which I remember from my short stay were:
The Tel Aviv city - overall the city is very safe. During the day it is crowded with lots of traffic and during night i is awake as pubs, bars open till 4 in the morning. The roads are pretty smooth and people follow traffic rules meticulously, even after midnight.
The beach - Beach was at a walking distance from my hotel and with a few friends we went to the beach at midnight. The weather during my stay was excellent and there was a nice and cool breeze across the beach.
The beauty - In Israel, this one thing is present in abundance. The women are beautiful and they know how to stay beautiful. Exercise is a very important part of their day and the results are evident. :) Traffic lights are used as an opportunity by many women to do some make-up. Israel is one of very few countries where men to women ratio is less than 1, which means that there are more women in the country than men. The effect is that there is perfect equality in the job. There is no job only meant for men. Be it petrol pump or grocery store or cab driving, women are up for it.
Hebrew - I picked up few words like 'Shalom' and started using them liberally. I am not sure if I was correct in their usage as there were a few eyebrows raised when I attempted Hebrew !!
Falafel - A typical food item from the region. It is similar to Indian food item called 'pakoda' or ' bhaji'. Although the preparation is similar the actual taste is very different. It is served with pita bread and few sauces. Excellent evening snack or light dinner !!


Before I realized it, my stay was over and I was coming back to India. I had amassed nearly 1000 snaps in 4 days (Guinness???) and still had return leg to capture in the lens.

This was not the only time I visited Israel. I had an opportunity to visit the country once again after six months. But the memories for that visit are saved for the next blog !!

Alonso in Ferrari - Who am I, an astrologer?

Although I plan to write blog frequently, I seldom manage to do it. But, right now, I am feeling happy that I wrote a blog on Fernando Alonso back in October 2008. I closed that post with a thought of Alonso in Ferrari and guess what.... The thought has come true. Alonso is indeed moving to Ferrari by end of this season and has signed a three year deal with option to get extension of one more year. So, my fluke turned into the truth and I am ready to call myself an astrologer !! :)

After Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso is the only complete driver. When compared to any other driver on the grid, Alonso stands out as the best. With a very mediocre car, he is able to generate some stunning results in qualifying as well as in race.

Ferrari has stopped all investments into the current F60 car and are concentrating solely on the next year's car. Considering their intentions for next year, it is safe to assume that the car which they will produce for the next year will be at par with any other team in F1. If a driver like Alonso gets into this car then results can tumble and we can see emergence of a true champion !!

In all this good going, I can't help but feel sad for Kimi. Kimi is another outstanding driver and at one time was knocking on the doors of the greatest driver. But, for some unknown reasons and contrary to his denials, he seemed to have lost the passion and it started reflecting in his race results. This lack in his drive was further dented by substandard car this year. Although during last few races, we could see the original aggressive Kimi, the damage was already done. The result: Kimi is out of Ferrari and his next seat in F1 is not assured. He indicated that he will only continue in Ferrari if he gets into a team that can compete for championship. This indication leaves us to wonder if he is going back to McLaren where he can replace lackluster country-mate Hekki. Speculations all over !!

But, forget about Kimi and Heikki, this moment belongs to Alonso and Ferrari and I can't wait to see their magic next season. But what if Fernando does not get along with Ferrari team management as happened during his tenure in McLaren?

Am I making another prediction????

Is Alonso’s success overnight?

In any competitive sport, luck can help you once but to perform consistently, one has to put hardwork and needs to be patient.

Formula 1’s rejuvenated hero, Fernando Alonso has just done that. With back to back wins in Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix, he has made a strong statement about his potential. Some Ferrari and McLaren fans might say that it was a fluke and with their share of bad luck, Alonso managed to win last two races. But winning back to back when your car is not as good as top 4, is something we should praise him for.

Ok, Alonso is doing well now, but how he is faring when compared to the top 5? Is he in the same league? Well, looking at last few races, we can say that ‘No, he is not in the same league, he is part of the higher league than top 5.’ This statement might look very aggressive considering the fact that Alonso was never in the title race for this season and his career was as good as putting a car on low gas. But there are stats to back it up that he is still the one. Have a look at the table below and you will understand, the consistent performances put up by Alonso as against bumpy ride the top 5 are going through. Alonso has amassed 35 points in last 6 races where maximum 60 points where available. In comparison, Hamilton (26), Massa (25), Kovalainen (25), Räikkönen (16), Kubica (16) are no where near to Alonso.



Figure 1 : Drivers statistics for last six races (click to enlarge)



Now you will argue that points in F1 are not true indicators as all positions from 9 onwards are just the same in terms of points (i.e. they all get 0 points). So, another statistic can be average ranking each player has achieved over last 6 races. For simplicity we will put a rank of 20 when the player did not finish the race and was not classified by FIA. In this perspective, we will see that Alonso with average rank of 5.7 is second only behind Hamilton (5.3) and is equaling Kovalainen (5.7). It is even more astonishing when you notice that he did not finish one race (results in ranking of 20) as against Hamilton or Kovalainen who finished all races. The other drivers are no where near to this consistent performance. Massa’s average rank is 7.5, Räikkönen is at 11, Kubica is 7.2.

What these statistics mean is that Alonso has performed better than others in last few races. Now, let’s go little deep to understand why it happened. There can be two ways. One, Alonso had a better car from Renault as against Ferrari, McLaren or BMW, or second, he is a better driver than all the others.

The first reasoning goes for a toss when we compare Alonso’s performance against that of his team mate over last few races. Nelson Piquet Jr is no mug in driving. He has won GP2 championship and is a very competitive racer. His car is by no means any different than that of Alonso’s. So why his average rank in last 6 races has been 11.9 and total points scored are mere 8? So, with same car setup, same engineers, same team one driver scores 35 points and other manages only 8. This only suggests that there is no doubt in slow and steady improvements in the team but Alonso is way beyond others when driving skills are considered which tilt the balance in favor of Renault.

By no means I am suggesting that other drivers are junk. Personally I am die hard fan of Kimi but in last few races Alonso has proved that he has in him what it takes to be a great driver and can be effective in car under him. After all, he managed to give a lot hard times to M Schumacher. Though for next seasons all major drivers seats are confirmed (all front running teams have extended their contracts with their current drivers), Alonso seems to be destined to stay in Renault. But just for sake of it, imagine Alonso in a scarlet Ferrari and I am sure your mind will go wrooooom !!! :)

Sony Ericsson P1i Review

To be honest, I was a genuine fan of Nokia phones all my life. Almost all the handsets I used till now were Nokia. I am not a person who will change handsets every 2-3 months. I like to really extract every drop of juice from the handset and then I move on. Till 2-3 months back, I was using Nokia CDMA 1110. A very basic model which was offered by my previous employer. Well, as long as I did not have to pay the usage bill, I was not complaining of using the lower handset and of the fact that I was not able to change the handset (CDMA, what else can I say!!)
Incidentally, I also bumped against Moto Razr V3i (this one I had presented my wife as her birthday gift). I went onsite for 3 months and as CDMA was useless out of the country, I carried the V3i. And Boy, it is a great handset !! I loved it. The style, the features, the camera, the expandable memory.. It was all very refreshing for me, especially after using Nokia basic models for years. :)
3 months back, I changed my company and that gave me an opportunity to look for new handsets. Suddenly, I found myself exploring all brands, all models. At one point of time, my family got bugged up, as much as I was into exploration, I was getting confused as well. Finally, I decided my criteria for new handset in terms of features and ceil value for the price.
Features:

1. Touch screen : Short listed : Moto Rokr, SE P1i, Moto Ming.


2. Any version of Office : Moto Q9, Nokia E series, Nokia communicator, SE P1i.


3. Wifi : SE P1i, Nokia Communicator


4. 3+ MP Camera with Flash : SE Cybershot series, Nokia N75, SE P1i.


5. Price : Within 20K : All the above except Nokia Communicator.

Being a software guy, I took logical decision to go for P1i. I read thousands of reviews and got to know about the good features it offers and also some of the drawbacks. This ensured that there are no surprises for me after I buy the handset.

Now, after using this handset for 2 months, following is my impression of it.
The things I liked:

1. Usability – the touch screen and the jog dial give a very convenient way to explore all menus, options.
   
2. Features – this handset is master of all. It has tons of features.
   Applications and utilities: Business card scanner is something I loved the most. Handwriting recognition is quite good. It also comes with office suite. A decent desktop tool for file transfer, sync, Blackberry email support, a couple of decent games. FM Radio is nice, although option to store only six stations is a drawback.
   
3. Communication - wireless lan, Bluetooth, USB interface, GPRS, Video conferencing (N/A for Indian networks).
   
4. Memory – it came with 128MB on board memory which outranks many other competitor models in the same range. It has a hot-swappable mini SD card slot. The handset package included 1 GB card which seems enough for me.
   
5. Camera – Camera for still shots as well as video. 3.2 MP still shot camera can work in many modes. The flash accompanies the camera. The image quality is nice but not something to die for.
   
6. Battery Life – Once fully charged, with moderate use (10-20 calls in the day and 1 hour of listening to music on speaker phone), the battery lasts for 3-3.5 days which I think is pretty good. Also the better thing is that it takes less than an hour to recharge a fully drained battery.

The things I did not like:

1. Keypad – Though it possesses a full QWERTY keypad, it is not the easiest to operate. To reduce the size of the handset and to reduce the number of keys, SE has introduced dual keys. i.e. if pressed on the left side of the key, a different character is printed and if pressed on the right side of the key, a different character is printed. So, for every letter user has to think where the character is located, and then he has to decide which side to press.
2. VGA camera – Apart from the 3.2 MP camera at the back of the handset, another VGA camera is fitted in front top-left corner. It can be used for video calls. But as in India, no operators support this, it is useless. I would have like to have an option to get rid of this camera and reduce the cost.
   
3. USB charging – Not sure what the root cause is, but I found USB charging works too slowly. It took almost 7-8 hours to get the battery to 80% charge level.
   

Also accompanying the handset is a desktop charger. Basically it’s a handset stand which can be connected to power plug for charging. As this is not very convenient to carry around, I seldom use it. SE also gives you 10 software choice points. These can be used to download some SE p1i related software. It is not very enticing as there are not many options available at 10 points. This is more of a advertising gimmick. :)

I do not want to stretch this article longer, so I will move to conclusion. I love this handset and I am waiting for lower GPRS charges by our telecom operators to make optimum use of this handset. I will recommend this handset to all those who want a stylish touch screen monster with tons of features, more importantly a 3.2 MP camera.

Adios,

Aamod Joshi