then about 10 mins uphill and you reach this lonely place
couple of canned beers
and some nice hard hitting water
roasted chicken and lamb to boot it up
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Waterfalls near KL
25 mins drive...
then about 10 mins uphill and you reach this lonely place
couple of canned beers
and some nice hard hitting water
roasted chicken and lamb to boot it up
then about 10 mins uphill and you reach this lonely place
couple of canned beers
and some nice hard hitting water
roasted chicken and lamb to boot it up
Monday, January 30, 2006
Malaysian snippets
I have been in this place for close to a month now. Overall I think this place is quite accommodating and friendly. It is quite an open society though being a predominantly Muslim country. The vision is to become a developed nation by 2020. Here are some snippets on certain features of this country and its people.
• Predominantly Malays, followed by Chinese, Indians, Sri lankans, Indonesians, Pakistanis etc. Most of the private businesses are headed by people of Chinese and Indian origin. There are lots of privileges allowed to the Malays, say in jobs, education etc. So you will find lots of students of these communities studying abroad. Very recently a group of ministers of these ethnic communities approached the government with some recommendations, which was smartly turned away by the government
• Crime is a worry here these days. The crime rate seems to have picked up with rape and murder dominating the pages in the recent past. The latest sensational case has been of a 20 something girl being raped and murdered when she had gone for a jog in the evening. There have been enough cases of bag snatching that I have come to hear by now from different sets of people. These crimes are done basically by drug addicts it seems
• Malaysians love to eat out. The restaurants are open late night and there are a couple of 24 hrs restaurants as well. Chinese restaurants, Thai restaurants, Indian restaurants and Malay restaurants. The Indian restaurants have different names, some are called Mamas coz they are basically Indian Muslim restaurants and some sell North Indian food as well and are a bit expensive than your normal curry house restaurants etc
• Then there is a chain of restaurants called Lotus. Started by couple of enterprising Tamilians, these are huge restaurants which serve almost the entire Indian cuisine. Some of them are open for 24 hours and are priced at a not too expensive as well as not so cheap rate. The guys who own lotus are building 2-3 mansion like houses near where I stay, so you know how successful in their venture. The Lotus close to my place has a small theatre complex which shows Tamil movies aswell
• The quality of English Newspapers is not so good. The leading ones are Star, New Strait Times (NST), Daily Mail and Sun. Sun is free and make money only from their ads, whereas the other newspapers are priced at RM 1.2 (1 RM = Rs 11.8). Sometimes I wonder if it rightly priced as one Dosa is RM 1 at the Indian restaurant where I have my breakfast. Star and NST are basically 100 pages newspapers and more or less a tabloid. There are some Chinese as well as Malay newspapers too. But I think the quality of our Indian newspapers are far better than what we have here
• Bahasa Malaya is very similar to our Hindi/Sanskrit. There are many words which sound similar like Bahasa itself. Some other examples are Bahaya (Danger), Sandas (Toilet, this is one of the most funny words I find in hindi too!!!)…
• The quality of infrastructure is supreme, no doubt about it. Malaysians have this inner desire to make the tallest and largest of everything. Eg.Petronas towers. The largest Ikea showroom in Asia is here in KL. They make new flyovers in 7-8 months flat. I need not say about the Airport, it is one of the best in the world. Agreed that the traffic jams are still there, but I think even London has got jams that last an hour.
• Talking of transport, the city is connected by Light Rail Transport (called LRT for short). There are 2 separate lines (Putra and Star), which meet in 2-3 common stations, the important one being KL Sentral. This place also has the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) Express, which takes you from the city centre to the airport in 28 minutes flat. You can do a check in at this terminal also, very convenient and avoids all the traffic in this city. The bus service I think is lacking in this city, never got into one so far. Cabs are another efficient mode of transport and beware of Teksi Premier, they charge you double the Teksi Berimeter rates, a sthey are the luxury taxis.
• This country has got very rich vegetation. When you land itself you will see the thick greenery around the airport. The largest exporter of Palm oil, Malaysia has a lot of Palm trees. There has been also a recent sighting of a mystery animal of 2 m height being spotted in one of the forests. A la Yeti
• Every country has got this dark shade to it. Be it the Mumbai underworld or the Delhi Mafia or the local Goonda. This country has the Chinese mafia. It seems they have personal stake in the government too. The Dons roam around freely and they control a lot of business in this country. Mafia killings have not happened for some time now but everyone knows about it but no one speaks about it
• The Malay local banks are protected from the foreign banks, so you will find only 3 Citibank branches in the whole country, something similar is the case with HSBC and Stan C. The local banks that are doing well are Maybank, Public Bank, Am Bank (Arab Malaysia, they own the mall where I stay), Eon Bank, Overseas Limited Bank etc.
So that’s about it on life in Malaysia. If anything comes to mind later, will jot in. Btw the Malay way of speaking English is very sidey, most of them add a “lah” to almost every sentence. Their justification is it is like the “you know” which other people use in their English. Hmm...
Also if you ask them, anything like, Will you do this/Can I take this train to KL Sentral etc, be sure to hear this “ Can Can” with a very strong shake of his/her head. “Can” used twice, is to ensure beyond any doubt or convince you to do that or suggesting that you can go ahead and do it. It is very funny I should say.
• Predominantly Malays, followed by Chinese, Indians, Sri lankans, Indonesians, Pakistanis etc. Most of the private businesses are headed by people of Chinese and Indian origin. There are lots of privileges allowed to the Malays, say in jobs, education etc. So you will find lots of students of these communities studying abroad. Very recently a group of ministers of these ethnic communities approached the government with some recommendations, which was smartly turned away by the government
• Crime is a worry here these days. The crime rate seems to have picked up with rape and murder dominating the pages in the recent past. The latest sensational case has been of a 20 something girl being raped and murdered when she had gone for a jog in the evening. There have been enough cases of bag snatching that I have come to hear by now from different sets of people. These crimes are done basically by drug addicts it seems
• Malaysians love to eat out. The restaurants are open late night and there are a couple of 24 hrs restaurants as well. Chinese restaurants, Thai restaurants, Indian restaurants and Malay restaurants. The Indian restaurants have different names, some are called Mamas coz they are basically Indian Muslim restaurants and some sell North Indian food as well and are a bit expensive than your normal curry house restaurants etc
• Then there is a chain of restaurants called Lotus. Started by couple of enterprising Tamilians, these are huge restaurants which serve almost the entire Indian cuisine. Some of them are open for 24 hours and are priced at a not too expensive as well as not so cheap rate. The guys who own lotus are building 2-3 mansion like houses near where I stay, so you know how successful in their venture. The Lotus close to my place has a small theatre complex which shows Tamil movies aswell
• The quality of English Newspapers is not so good. The leading ones are Star, New Strait Times (NST), Daily Mail and Sun. Sun is free and make money only from their ads, whereas the other newspapers are priced at RM 1.2 (1 RM = Rs 11.8). Sometimes I wonder if it rightly priced as one Dosa is RM 1 at the Indian restaurant where I have my breakfast. Star and NST are basically 100 pages newspapers and more or less a tabloid. There are some Chinese as well as Malay newspapers too. But I think the quality of our Indian newspapers are far better than what we have here
• Bahasa Malaya is very similar to our Hindi/Sanskrit. There are many words which sound similar like Bahasa itself. Some other examples are Bahaya (Danger), Sandas (Toilet, this is one of the most funny words I find in hindi too!!!)…
• The quality of infrastructure is supreme, no doubt about it. Malaysians have this inner desire to make the tallest and largest of everything. Eg.Petronas towers. The largest Ikea showroom in Asia is here in KL. They make new flyovers in 7-8 months flat. I need not say about the Airport, it is one of the best in the world. Agreed that the traffic jams are still there, but I think even London has got jams that last an hour.
• Talking of transport, the city is connected by Light Rail Transport (called LRT for short). There are 2 separate lines (Putra and Star), which meet in 2-3 common stations, the important one being KL Sentral. This place also has the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) Express, which takes you from the city centre to the airport in 28 minutes flat. You can do a check in at this terminal also, very convenient and avoids all the traffic in this city. The bus service I think is lacking in this city, never got into one so far. Cabs are another efficient mode of transport and beware of Teksi Premier, they charge you double the Teksi Berimeter rates, a sthey are the luxury taxis.
• This country has got very rich vegetation. When you land itself you will see the thick greenery around the airport. The largest exporter of Palm oil, Malaysia has a lot of Palm trees. There has been also a recent sighting of a mystery animal of 2 m height being spotted in one of the forests. A la Yeti
• Every country has got this dark shade to it. Be it the Mumbai underworld or the Delhi Mafia or the local Goonda. This country has the Chinese mafia. It seems they have personal stake in the government too. The Dons roam around freely and they control a lot of business in this country. Mafia killings have not happened for some time now but everyone knows about it but no one speaks about it
• The Malay local banks are protected from the foreign banks, so you will find only 3 Citibank branches in the whole country, something similar is the case with HSBC and Stan C. The local banks that are doing well are Maybank, Public Bank, Am Bank (Arab Malaysia, they own the mall where I stay), Eon Bank, Overseas Limited Bank etc.
So that’s about it on life in Malaysia. If anything comes to mind later, will jot in. Btw the Malay way of speaking English is very sidey, most of them add a “lah” to almost every sentence. Their justification is it is like the “you know” which other people use in their English. Hmm...
Also if you ask them, anything like, Will you do this/Can I take this train to KL Sentral etc, be sure to hear this “ Can Can” with a very strong shake of his/her head. “Can” used twice, is to ensure beyond any doubt or convince you to do that or suggesting that you can go ahead and do it. It is very funny I should say.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Have you seen anything like this before?
A temple with a clock tower!!! This is a Pillayar temple and it has a clock tower...There is another Shiva temple on top of a hill quite close to my place. I heard the view from there is awesome...too lazy to go anywhere...but I think I shud do that pretty soon...not for worship, but for the view!!!
Monday, January 23, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Some things in life...
Some days back I read in a friend's blog that sometimes when you hear a song after a long time, it takes you back to those times, with those friends with whom you heard it for the first time. Well, I think it is not just songs, it is the same with movies, cricket matches and football matches too.
Here I get to see a lot of Chinese channels and Malay channels other than the usual suspects – the movie channels, the sports channels and news channels. I get two Indian channels – Sun TV and Astro Vaanavil. Now these are basically catering to the south Indian population of Malaysia, basically the Tamil section of them. Astro Vaanavil shows their own content, other than some programs from Surya TV (Malayalam) and Gemini TV (Telugu) and Jaya TV (Tami again). So my consumption of Tamil programs and movies has increased by many folds.
Now coming to the point of writing this blog. Yesterday I was watching Sun and they showed a little-old movie – Kadhalikku Maryaadhai. It was a super-hit remake of a super-hit Malayalam movie, Aniyathi pravu. The movie stars Vijay and Shalini. It was a different movie in the sense that though it was a love affair going sour due to family pressures, the way the movie climaxes was a refreshing change. The original Malayalam movie was released in 97, when I was in XIIth and the Tamil one was released when I was in 1st year engineering, the following year. The movie was a runaway hit in Tamilnadu and I remember in Trichy there were huge cutouts of the stars and the songs were playing all over the place. The movie took me back to some memories of Trichy. The last movie I watched in Trichy was Minnale (RHTDM original in Tamil), with many sets of friends. Though Dil Tho Pagal Hai will remain the movie where we had the most fun, with the theatre filled with Rectians it was a completely different experience, with us dancing on the aisles during songs, how stupid were we guys!!!
Have you ever watched a cricket or a football match in the hostel TV rooms? Well if you have then you will understand the emotions in the rest of this post. Else you can read and try to imagine how it would have been.
The year was 1998. Brazil was playing France for the World Cup. Well what hype, Brazil in great form, with Ronaldo in terrific touch and France having a sleeping genius, Zidane who had not yet awakened to his true form. We were in 2nd year and the TV room was divided into two, those who support the sambas and those who don’t. The story was short as Zidane scored for the first time in the tournament, that too twice to put it well ahead of Brazil. The non-Brazilian supporters, in blues, had a field day at our expense. When it is a 0-3 verdict, you don’t have much to talk about you see. That was some nite!!!
1999 and it was Sharjah and cricket this time. India was playing Australia for a place in the final to again play Australia. And our man was Tendulkar. Some people still believe that this particular innings of Sachin is the only aggressive innings that he has played to take India to victory. With the huge total that was posted by Australia, few in the TV room gave India a chance. That was the time when the TV rooms across India would be vacated as Sachin got out. Some say that the ad rates in the sports channels also dropped due to this strange phenomenon. Sachin did not get out, but the scoring rate was not all that great. Slowly as India looked like achieving the impossible, fellow hostelites, vacated their own rooms and crowded the TV room. It was hot and humid and rather than Kasprowic feeling the heat of Sachin’s batting, it was we who were feeling the heat. India did not win that match, but that was a match, which made India believe in herself, or maybe in Sachin to do the impossible. We reached the final and Sachin hit another century and we won the tournament. I am sure each and everyone in the TV room that day will remember these two matches for the rest of their life. They will remember the shouts and abuses, the sixes and the quick singles. The Tamilians and the North Indians has different styles of celebration and abusing. There was something like “o” podu, a typical Tamil way of cheering.
Come 2002 and I was in Calcutta. The world cup football was going on when the admissions started and we moved into the hostels. The TV rooms were filled, but these were better TV rooms. Being Calcutta, another football crazy city, the college authorities decided to show the match in the big screen in the lecture halls. So we were all there, me as usual, supporting Brazil. I don’t think there were many who wanted to support the Germans. Well it was a very comfortable environment and Brazil romped through.
The two memories that are etched in my memory of the Calcutta hostel are the epic Natwest final match and the India – Pak world cup cricket match.
It was another final, another chance to be a team of underachievers for the team under Ganguly. And when England scored in excess of 300 (325 I think), half the country had given up hope. And when you do not have a Sachin Tendulkar in a team, you have already started with a disadvantage, at least which is what half the country thought. The TV room was full, expected, when you have somebody like Sehwag doing the opening honours. But after Ganguly and then Sehwag departed, the TV room just emptied. There were some of us who wanted to just see the whole match, as we did not have much to do that day. Slowly Kaif and Yuvraj, moved the score past the 200s and then 250s. Smses were sent to people in classes, guys who were browsing from the rooms, rushed in to see it live. The room was stuffed like crazy. Every run was cheered and abuses hurled at the English. High fives were flying, clapping and cheering made sure that the commentary of the match in the last 10-15 minutes was lost. Well that should go down as the most memorable match, were you watching that from home or hostel!
The other one was the world cup match, which India won, thanks once again to Sachin. But the whole setting was different. We had a huge screen made in a hostel quadrangle, people were watching it from all levels of the hostel and booze was flowing like runs from Sachin’s bat. It was like a party match, with everyone shouting and howling for India. Well that was some atmosphere.
In fact when you are watching a cricket match in a hostel which has presence of students from different states of India, you have some really funny scenes. Like suppose Rahul Dravid is not playing well, then there are abuses and bumps happening to guys from Karnataka. And there are some favorite and lucky positions for some of us who are watching it, so that India just score runs and not lose a wicket. Suppose one guy is just getting into the TV room and India lose a wicket, well then the poor soul is termed unlucky and earns the brunt of the whole room for the rest of the match. And the small tea-breaks we have during the intervals were discussion time for the strategies for the team and speculation on what’s going to happen in the second half.
But what I miss most now are the TV room battles I had with my fellow hostelites during the EPL matches. My close friends were Man U fans and me an ardent Arsenal fan. Well couple of years back, there was no Chelsea, so it was Arsenal v/s Man U for the premiership. The EPL weekends and the Champions League atmosphere in the TV room were more relaxing times, as the room won’t be as crowded as any India cricket match. The EPL passion continued to my Mumbai roomies, who supported Chelsea and any non-Arsenal team. But those were the days when Arsenal was playing good football.
There would be good crowds in the TV room for the F1 too. The McLarens and the Ferraris. The Raikonnen fans and the Schumacher fans used to battle it out in the TV rooms. I was not into F1 like I was into football. But some of my friends were into it and I used to sometimes see the start and end of the races.
Parting shot - Any guesses on what the picture below is about???
Here I get to see a lot of Chinese channels and Malay channels other than the usual suspects – the movie channels, the sports channels and news channels. I get two Indian channels – Sun TV and Astro Vaanavil. Now these are basically catering to the south Indian population of Malaysia, basically the Tamil section of them. Astro Vaanavil shows their own content, other than some programs from Surya TV (Malayalam) and Gemini TV (Telugu) and Jaya TV (Tami again). So my consumption of Tamil programs and movies has increased by many folds.
Now coming to the point of writing this blog. Yesterday I was watching Sun and they showed a little-old movie – Kadhalikku Maryaadhai. It was a super-hit remake of a super-hit Malayalam movie, Aniyathi pravu. The movie stars Vijay and Shalini. It was a different movie in the sense that though it was a love affair going sour due to family pressures, the way the movie climaxes was a refreshing change. The original Malayalam movie was released in 97, when I was in XIIth and the Tamil one was released when I was in 1st year engineering, the following year. The movie was a runaway hit in Tamilnadu and I remember in Trichy there were huge cutouts of the stars and the songs were playing all over the place. The movie took me back to some memories of Trichy. The last movie I watched in Trichy was Minnale (RHTDM original in Tamil), with many sets of friends. Though Dil Tho Pagal Hai will remain the movie where we had the most fun, with the theatre filled with Rectians it was a completely different experience, with us dancing on the aisles during songs, how stupid were we guys!!!
Have you ever watched a cricket or a football match in the hostel TV rooms? Well if you have then you will understand the emotions in the rest of this post. Else you can read and try to imagine how it would have been.
The year was 1998. Brazil was playing France for the World Cup. Well what hype, Brazil in great form, with Ronaldo in terrific touch and France having a sleeping genius, Zidane who had not yet awakened to his true form. We were in 2nd year and the TV room was divided into two, those who support the sambas and those who don’t. The story was short as Zidane scored for the first time in the tournament, that too twice to put it well ahead of Brazil. The non-Brazilian supporters, in blues, had a field day at our expense. When it is a 0-3 verdict, you don’t have much to talk about you see. That was some nite!!!
1999 and it was Sharjah and cricket this time. India was playing Australia for a place in the final to again play Australia. And our man was Tendulkar. Some people still believe that this particular innings of Sachin is the only aggressive innings that he has played to take India to victory. With the huge total that was posted by Australia, few in the TV room gave India a chance. That was the time when the TV rooms across India would be vacated as Sachin got out. Some say that the ad rates in the sports channels also dropped due to this strange phenomenon. Sachin did not get out, but the scoring rate was not all that great. Slowly as India looked like achieving the impossible, fellow hostelites, vacated their own rooms and crowded the TV room. It was hot and humid and rather than Kasprowic feeling the heat of Sachin’s batting, it was we who were feeling the heat. India did not win that match, but that was a match, which made India believe in herself, or maybe in Sachin to do the impossible. We reached the final and Sachin hit another century and we won the tournament. I am sure each and everyone in the TV room that day will remember these two matches for the rest of their life. They will remember the shouts and abuses, the sixes and the quick singles. The Tamilians and the North Indians has different styles of celebration and abusing. There was something like “o” podu, a typical Tamil way of cheering.
Come 2002 and I was in Calcutta. The world cup football was going on when the admissions started and we moved into the hostels. The TV rooms were filled, but these were better TV rooms. Being Calcutta, another football crazy city, the college authorities decided to show the match in the big screen in the lecture halls. So we were all there, me as usual, supporting Brazil. I don’t think there were many who wanted to support the Germans. Well it was a very comfortable environment and Brazil romped through.
The two memories that are etched in my memory of the Calcutta hostel are the epic Natwest final match and the India – Pak world cup cricket match.
It was another final, another chance to be a team of underachievers for the team under Ganguly. And when England scored in excess of 300 (325 I think), half the country had given up hope. And when you do not have a Sachin Tendulkar in a team, you have already started with a disadvantage, at least which is what half the country thought. The TV room was full, expected, when you have somebody like Sehwag doing the opening honours. But after Ganguly and then Sehwag departed, the TV room just emptied. There were some of us who wanted to just see the whole match, as we did not have much to do that day. Slowly Kaif and Yuvraj, moved the score past the 200s and then 250s. Smses were sent to people in classes, guys who were browsing from the rooms, rushed in to see it live. The room was stuffed like crazy. Every run was cheered and abuses hurled at the English. High fives were flying, clapping and cheering made sure that the commentary of the match in the last 10-15 minutes was lost. Well that should go down as the most memorable match, were you watching that from home or hostel!
The other one was the world cup match, which India won, thanks once again to Sachin. But the whole setting was different. We had a huge screen made in a hostel quadrangle, people were watching it from all levels of the hostel and booze was flowing like runs from Sachin’s bat. It was like a party match, with everyone shouting and howling for India. Well that was some atmosphere.
In fact when you are watching a cricket match in a hostel which has presence of students from different states of India, you have some really funny scenes. Like suppose Rahul Dravid is not playing well, then there are abuses and bumps happening to guys from Karnataka. And there are some favorite and lucky positions for some of us who are watching it, so that India just score runs and not lose a wicket. Suppose one guy is just getting into the TV room and India lose a wicket, well then the poor soul is termed unlucky and earns the brunt of the whole room for the rest of the match. And the small tea-breaks we have during the intervals were discussion time for the strategies for the team and speculation on what’s going to happen in the second half.
But what I miss most now are the TV room battles I had with my fellow hostelites during the EPL matches. My close friends were Man U fans and me an ardent Arsenal fan. Well couple of years back, there was no Chelsea, so it was Arsenal v/s Man U for the premiership. The EPL weekends and the Champions League atmosphere in the TV room were more relaxing times, as the room won’t be as crowded as any India cricket match. The EPL passion continued to my Mumbai roomies, who supported Chelsea and any non-Arsenal team. But those were the days when Arsenal was playing good football.
There would be good crowds in the TV room for the F1 too. The McLarens and the Ferraris. The Raikonnen fans and the Schumacher fans used to battle it out in the TV rooms. I was not into F1 like I was into football. But some of my friends were into it and I used to sometimes see the start and end of the races.
Parting shot - Any guesses on what the picture below is about???
Thursday, January 12, 2006
My Neighbourhood!!!
Thats where I stay. One side is the office on the 10th floor and the other side the apartment or condominium as they call it here on the 16th floor. Good view I should say. The only problem is they are not connected so I come down 16 floors and then go up 10 floors...
Right opposite Amcorp, you have this. Ok not that I will go footballing soon, but the very thought that I can kick a ball anytime I want is heart warming itself. There are kids playing every evening here. Btw Football is huge here...they even have a weekly magazine by the name EPL!!!
Thats the highway that takes you to KL. If you look hard enough you can see the Petronas. But one tower is blocking the other, hence youo see only one tower.
Well there is this nice little water body (we used to call such small water bodies in IIMC as lakes!!!) with a nice jogging track. Its a place for the kids to cycle around and health conscious people.
Yes thats the swimming pool which I can use, if only I knew to swim. People often ask me - How come you bare from Kerala and do not know to swim??? Well I didnt thats it. I am yet to go down and see it, but what do i do after going there.
Traffic Jam - Well they follow me from Bangalore I guess. But jams are very common in this city. See that gate at the end of the road (partly hidden by a yellow building), well thats where KL starts...You can say, PJ, where I stay is a suburb.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Ivide Elaam Kittum
Well, I shifted to a new address in a new city in a new country!!!
The office and my apartment are both in the same mall and so my life is going to be in and around the same mall, I guess...that is whenever I am not traveling. One good thing about this country is that they have holidays for the Malaysian festivals, the Chinese festival, the Indian festivals and go knows which other community.
I have to come down to the ground floor of the mall to buy a newspaper as they do not allow door delivery of newspapers in my apartment for security reason. So I woke up and walked down inside the mall. The still escalators and the empty corridors look haunting in the morning. And right now…well people do freak out on Chinese New Year preparations.
My office is getting done and so is my business development. So I guess for the next one month my posts are gonna be on conversations in Starbucks!!!
I was checking out this Indian restaurant in the basement and chatted up with this Tamil guy who was running it. I asked him what I will get for breakfast and he told me “Ivide Elaam Kittum”, which translates to “You get everything here”. That was so reassuring. Oh I haven’t told you guys about what happened after I ate ethnic Chinese here the last time…Well some other time.
Also, I can download videos from Google!!!
The office and my apartment are both in the same mall and so my life is going to be in and around the same mall, I guess...that is whenever I am not traveling. One good thing about this country is that they have holidays for the Malaysian festivals, the Chinese festival, the Indian festivals and go knows which other community.
I have to come down to the ground floor of the mall to buy a newspaper as they do not allow door delivery of newspapers in my apartment for security reason. So I woke up and walked down inside the mall. The still escalators and the empty corridors look haunting in the morning. And right now…well people do freak out on Chinese New Year preparations.
My office is getting done and so is my business development. So I guess for the next one month my posts are gonna be on conversations in Starbucks!!!
I was checking out this Indian restaurant in the basement and chatted up with this Tamil guy who was running it. I asked him what I will get for breakfast and he told me “Ivide Elaam Kittum”, which translates to “You get everything here”. That was so reassuring. Oh I haven’t told you guys about what happened after I ate ethnic Chinese here the last time…Well some other time.
Also, I can download videos from Google!!!
Monday, January 09, 2006
Continuing the Google argument!
Google has been in the news not just in this blog...A friend of mine works with MS. We met couple of weeks back at another friend's wedding and we had a long discussion on Google vs MS...He is a die-hard MS man and he send me a mail today...it goes like this...
Is Google a threat to Microsoft?
Year 2005 was a year of Google. Google has been churning out software at an amazing speed. But more importantly it has been churning out news at phenomenal pace even faster than software. The result, Google’s stock is continuously touching new heights. The meteoritic rise of Google has caused many people to say that it is fast becoming a threat to Microsoft. Is this a reality?Let’s evaluate the threat and see if it is real or just hype
Google’s speed: Yes, this is true. Each day we see a new product from Google going into Beta. Amazingly, a lot of Google software is in Beta. Google is even better at delivering news. The result, Google seems to be the most efficient and competitive company. What most people don’t realize that most Google applications are web based, hence it is easier for them to keep updating their servers with new versions if they find some bugs. Even when applications are desktop applications they are not enterprise level or critical application hence even if they have bugs it is not critical. Microsoft cannot do this with their applications especially with OS and other enterprise level application servers. I am not saying Google is not efficient, what I am trying to say is that Google can afford to have application in beta and with bugs, so lifecycle of these applications should not be compared with lifecycle critical applications. I would say today Google is doing the same thing what Microsoft did a few years back when they could afford to have buggy OS and applications as most its users were not enterprises.
Google’s stock: Another reason why people think Google is threat is rise of Google’s stock. Let’s go back a few years. In year 1990 Microsoft traded at split adjusted $0.62. Today its stock is at 27$, a rise by 43 times. In fact I am not even taking into account the golden days of year 2000 when it was much higher. Let’s see another stock EMC. In year 1990 EMC traded at $0.12 and today it is almost 14, a rise by 116 times, again I am not taking in to consideration days when EMC was 100$. Hence rise like Google is expected of good companies. What has made Google’s rise spectacular? It is rising in more or less stagnant market and full marks to Google for that.
Sustained Growth: Google is really growing at a phenomenal pace, no doubt. But is growth as such rate sustainable? I don’t think growing at such a pace is possible for long period of time. This happens with all the companies, probably almost with everything. Companies grow quickly when they are young just like humans, then they reach maturity become stable and don’t grow like they were growing earlier. Finally become old and die off. Probably, Google is still in its childhood.So, Is Google really a threat to Microsoft? Not really. It is very good company which is growing very quickly but over the time it would stabilize and there would be new kid on the block which would be growing like Google is growing today and I will write a similar story about it. Only names of threat and threatened may be different.
Well meanwhile I get this link from a discussion board...
Ten Things Google has found to be True!!!
Enjoy reading!!!
~sujith
Is Google a threat to Microsoft?
Year 2005 was a year of Google. Google has been churning out software at an amazing speed. But more importantly it has been churning out news at phenomenal pace even faster than software. The result, Google’s stock is continuously touching new heights. The meteoritic rise of Google has caused many people to say that it is fast becoming a threat to Microsoft. Is this a reality?Let’s evaluate the threat and see if it is real or just hype
Google’s speed: Yes, this is true. Each day we see a new product from Google going into Beta. Amazingly, a lot of Google software is in Beta. Google is even better at delivering news. The result, Google seems to be the most efficient and competitive company. What most people don’t realize that most Google applications are web based, hence it is easier for them to keep updating their servers with new versions if they find some bugs. Even when applications are desktop applications they are not enterprise level or critical application hence even if they have bugs it is not critical. Microsoft cannot do this with their applications especially with OS and other enterprise level application servers. I am not saying Google is not efficient, what I am trying to say is that Google can afford to have application in beta and with bugs, so lifecycle of these applications should not be compared with lifecycle critical applications. I would say today Google is doing the same thing what Microsoft did a few years back when they could afford to have buggy OS and applications as most its users were not enterprises.
Google’s stock: Another reason why people think Google is threat is rise of Google’s stock. Let’s go back a few years. In year 1990 Microsoft traded at split adjusted $0.62. Today its stock is at 27$, a rise by 43 times. In fact I am not even taking into account the golden days of year 2000 when it was much higher. Let’s see another stock EMC. In year 1990 EMC traded at $0.12 and today it is almost 14, a rise by 116 times, again I am not taking in to consideration days when EMC was 100$. Hence rise like Google is expected of good companies. What has made Google’s rise spectacular? It is rising in more or less stagnant market and full marks to Google for that.
Sustained Growth: Google is really growing at a phenomenal pace, no doubt. But is growth as such rate sustainable? I don’t think growing at such a pace is possible for long period of time. This happens with all the companies, probably almost with everything. Companies grow quickly when they are young just like humans, then they reach maturity become stable and don’t grow like they were growing earlier. Finally become old and die off. Probably, Google is still in its childhood.So, Is Google really a threat to Microsoft? Not really. It is very good company which is growing very quickly but over the time it would stabilize and there would be new kid on the block which would be growing like Google is growing today and I will write a similar story about it. Only names of threat and threatened may be different.
Well meanwhile I get this link from a discussion board...
Ten Things Google has found to be True!!!
Enjoy reading!!!
~sujith
Saturday, January 07, 2006
http://video.google.com/
Is up and running...but I dont think we can download the videos in India yet...
I tried downloadin some nice mallu videos, but this is the response I got
Thanks for your interest in Google Video.
I tried downloadin some nice mallu videos, but this is the response I got
Thanks for your interest in Google Video.
Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country.
We hope to make this feature available more widely in the future, and we really appreciate your patience
So I will wait!!!Friday, January 06, 2006
50th Post
It’s been more than a year and many thousand words and some pictures since that November 2004, when I used to frequent the blogs of two of my friends, K , a very soft spoken, creative drummist and Sidin not too modest, gifted writer. The association we have goes back to RECT, where we formed the Dumb Charades team in the first year and scared the seniors with a neat performance in the first year.
Ya coming back to my blog. I finally decided to write on Mumbai life, where you remember timings like 7:58, 8:02 because those are the train timings and that is around which my life revolved in that city. The initial period was a little slow and draining as you needed time and later on a laptop to write something. Well time is a constraint in a city like Mumbai which for many reasons are crowded beyond its permissible limits. And time is some 9 hours I get at home on a weekday and that is inclusive of sleep. Weekends were for movies and more sleep. Well in case of my roomies- Goa, it meant more sleep, Prabhu more work, Pal more of both and Vishal, who joined us late, sleep and Powai.
November was also the time when we had to break Pal’s credit card and make into 4 pieces and carry it in our wallets to meet sometime later in life and join them and make merry. I almost lost my piece, but later on realized that it is still with me.
Well sounds stupid but we were very senti that day when first Prabhu left for Bangalore in a train, with his waving hands fading in the darkness… Pal and Goa knew him for more than 7 years and I for 3 years. Sometimes silence is so thick that you can actually take a knife and cut it. Well even if I had one, I wouldn’t want to cut it that day. For long we were silent and just went home quietly. We knew that Prabhu was gonna be very difficult to track once he is out of our radar. Well he was the guy who stopped smoking I do not know how many times. Prabhu is in Bangalore and we are almost in touch!
Then Pal left for US. This time Goa and I did the honors of going to the airport at 12 AM and seeing him off. Well we knew that Pal once gone is never gonna look at coming back to India and would be happy there. He was a masti person who would just have a nice time with any company; he would just gel into any group. We packed many packets of sutta with him and by the time he was leaving, I am sure he knew more of downtown US than the whole of India. The return trip was as usual silent. Just me and Goa. It was hitting him more than it hit me, as two of his very close friends who have been with him from college and work, have just left him in a span of few weeks. But like I said in an earlier post, guys find it very difficult to communicate in difficult circumstances. Pal is getting married in February!
Pal, Prabhu and Goa
Meanwhile, K was also planning to go onsite like any other software engineer. He was a misfit in the Mumbai life or for that matter, work life. Well I went to see him off too. The hilarious thing was we went about buying stuff to brave the cold/snow (in US) a day before he left. Well generally confused that he is, I am not very sure what he would end up doing in the next 2-3 years. It has been a long time since we used to shout in chorus “K we love you” during the western music performance at RECT…he has grown more stubbles, more hair and put on more weight and inches and is braving the snow there in US…He continues to write and amaze people. I have no idea when he is back in India and I don’t think even he has!
Our new roomie, Vishal was a new comer into my life. I knew him only for like 2-3 months. But he was fun and he came up with this one god-level joke once in a week types. And that would be really funny. He took up Japanese very seriously and it was some time pass for us. He never believed in going to a multiplex and watching movies as they would be shown by our cable operator in a week’s time. Well his khichdi is Goa’s favorite dish. Vishal is pursuing some more Japanese classes has become a Tiger!
Goa was the only guys who was stay put in Mumbai till Cap Gemini happened to him and he is set to move not just out of the city, but out of the country. Well this time only Vishal will be there to see him off! But now that he has decided to buy a roof above his head I think things are going smooth for him. He was with me throughout my Patni stint, together in mainframe training then in warming the bench, through the layoffs and then the SEEPZ training and then the Japanese Business Unit. We got into the same project and same parties and then I ditched him and went for higher studies. But I don’t think he nor his bike can change. So he is still sleeping away to glory like those old days in Happy Valley. Goa is all set to grace the Queen’s country very soon.
Vishal, Goa on his bike and me
I left Mumbai in September after another 10 month stint in Mumbai. This time Goa and Vishal were left alone. All that later. Now back to my blog…
Life in Bangalore after some days…
~sujith
P.S. K - I dont have a pic of urs man...It is there in the comp at home
When Pal and Prabhu was there in Mumbai we didnt have a digicam, hence the pic is from a mobile cam and so the low clarity
Ya coming back to my blog. I finally decided to write on Mumbai life, where you remember timings like 7:58, 8:02 because those are the train timings and that is around which my life revolved in that city. The initial period was a little slow and draining as you needed time and later on a laptop to write something. Well time is a constraint in a city like Mumbai which for many reasons are crowded beyond its permissible limits. And time is some 9 hours I get at home on a weekday and that is inclusive of sleep. Weekends were for movies and more sleep. Well in case of my roomies- Goa, it meant more sleep, Prabhu more work, Pal more of both and Vishal, who joined us late, sleep and Powai.
November was also the time when we had to break Pal’s credit card and make into 4 pieces and carry it in our wallets to meet sometime later in life and join them and make merry. I almost lost my piece, but later on realized that it is still with me.
Well sounds stupid but we were very senti that day when first Prabhu left for Bangalore in a train, with his waving hands fading in the darkness… Pal and Goa knew him for more than 7 years and I for 3 years. Sometimes silence is so thick that you can actually take a knife and cut it. Well even if I had one, I wouldn’t want to cut it that day. For long we were silent and just went home quietly. We knew that Prabhu was gonna be very difficult to track once he is out of our radar. Well he was the guy who stopped smoking I do not know how many times. Prabhu is in Bangalore and we are almost in touch!
Then Pal left for US. This time Goa and I did the honors of going to the airport at 12 AM and seeing him off. Well we knew that Pal once gone is never gonna look at coming back to India and would be happy there. He was a masti person who would just have a nice time with any company; he would just gel into any group. We packed many packets of sutta with him and by the time he was leaving, I am sure he knew more of downtown US than the whole of India. The return trip was as usual silent. Just me and Goa. It was hitting him more than it hit me, as two of his very close friends who have been with him from college and work, have just left him in a span of few weeks. But like I said in an earlier post, guys find it very difficult to communicate in difficult circumstances. Pal is getting married in February!
Pal, Prabhu and Goa
Meanwhile, K was also planning to go onsite like any other software engineer. He was a misfit in the Mumbai life or for that matter, work life. Well I went to see him off too. The hilarious thing was we went about buying stuff to brave the cold/snow (in US) a day before he left. Well generally confused that he is, I am not very sure what he would end up doing in the next 2-3 years. It has been a long time since we used to shout in chorus “K we love you” during the western music performance at RECT…he has grown more stubbles, more hair and put on more weight and inches and is braving the snow there in US…He continues to write and amaze people. I have no idea when he is back in India and I don’t think even he has!
Our new roomie, Vishal was a new comer into my life. I knew him only for like 2-3 months. But he was fun and he came up with this one god-level joke once in a week types. And that would be really funny. He took up Japanese very seriously and it was some time pass for us. He never believed in going to a multiplex and watching movies as they would be shown by our cable operator in a week’s time. Well his khichdi is Goa’s favorite dish. Vishal is pursuing some more Japanese classes has become a Tiger!
Goa was the only guys who was stay put in Mumbai till Cap Gemini happened to him and he is set to move not just out of the city, but out of the country. Well this time only Vishal will be there to see him off! But now that he has decided to buy a roof above his head I think things are going smooth for him. He was with me throughout my Patni stint, together in mainframe training then in warming the bench, through the layoffs and then the SEEPZ training and then the Japanese Business Unit. We got into the same project and same parties and then I ditched him and went for higher studies. But I don’t think he nor his bike can change. So he is still sleeping away to glory like those old days in Happy Valley. Goa is all set to grace the Queen’s country very soon.
Vishal, Goa on his bike and me
I left Mumbai in September after another 10 month stint in Mumbai. This time Goa and Vishal were left alone. All that later. Now back to my blog…
Life in Bangalore after some days…
~sujith
P.S. K - I dont have a pic of urs man...It is there in the comp at home
When Pal and Prabhu was there in Mumbai we didnt have a digicam, hence the pic is from a mobile cam and so the low clarity
The Unending Google Story
It was December 2003 and Bill Gates was poking around on the Google website and came across the “Help Wanted” page and found the job specifications put up to be very similar to the Microsoft job specifications.
The scare is slowly becoming a reality now. Google has been slowly unveiling new products – from photo-sorting software to Web-based email to search via mobile phone. It gave users a alternative to write, post, share and print documents without using Windows and MS Word.
As one of my friend’s told me, very soon a time will come when a PC would just be a machine to connect to the net and you would connect to the google server, write documents on their text editor and save it to the server and mail it to anyone you want to, using Google mail. The only product which scores for MS is the Excel. There is a lot you can do with that product which you can’t with anything else. Google has yet to come up with a spreadsheet of its own.
On Jan 1st the LA Times reported on the google-fueled paranoia. And maybe today Larry Page would come up with an announcement in the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas. For the first time maybe, Bill Gates’ announcement of the latest MS offering Vista is being overshadowed by what Google might announce today!!!
The scare is slowly becoming a reality now. Google has been slowly unveiling new products – from photo-sorting software to Web-based email to search via mobile phone. It gave users a alternative to write, post, share and print documents without using Windows and MS Word.
As one of my friend’s told me, very soon a time will come when a PC would just be a machine to connect to the net and you would connect to the google server, write documents on their text editor and save it to the server and mail it to anyone you want to, using Google mail. The only product which scores for MS is the Excel. There is a lot you can do with that product which you can’t with anything else. Google has yet to come up with a spreadsheet of its own.
On Jan 1st the LA Times reported on the google-fueled paranoia. And maybe today Larry Page would come up with an announcement in the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas. For the first time maybe, Bill Gates’ announcement of the latest MS offering Vista is being overshadowed by what Google might announce today!!!
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Quite an eventful year ends…and one of hope starts
A year in which India discovered herself!
Sometimes it is good to be in a developing country during the start of your career. All the key parameters of the economy are going northwards. Let us look at how India scores with its once forsaken disadvantages turning to advantages…
1.Demography: With a population, whose bulk is youth, India has an advantage over the ageing American/European population. What this means is that maybe sometime in 5-10 years, about 10% (well this is my guess) of the working population of the world would be Indians. And guess what, there is going to be a short supply of engineers by 2010 in India.
2.Literacy: Well we were worried once about the 50% literacy rates in India. Well the best thing to happen is the rate at which it is growing. Why do you think the media is seeing newer channels and newspapers across India? When the growth in the developed markets has stagnated, India is set to grow and grow at two-digit growth.
3.Growth in rural areas: Talk about tapping the bottom of the pyramid, well that is exactly how the bigger FMCG companies and other MNCs look at the rural market now. They have customized their services to suit the needs of the rural India. With projects like e-choupal, the farm sector will become larger sourcing hubs not just for the Indian companies, but for a whole lot of other MNCs.
4.Teledensity: Well, it was that time of the year when the number of mobile phones overtook the number of landlines in India. And with the teledensity at around 10 per thousand, India is looking at doubling and tripling the number in the next 5-10 years. And that is something which will lead to many more things other than communication.
Well these are just some of the parameters and I am not even talking of the IT sector which is blooming and blossoming, India being the largest milk producer et al.
If there is one thing that I would hope India improves on is the corruption in public life and our inherent tendency to break rules. The first one is beyond the control of the common man, it needs a cleansing from top down, but maybe the second point can be done by one and all, a bottom up approach.
With the Tsunami and earthquakes behind us, India as a country has just started its march forward and lets hope this year brings in a lot of cheer and joy for the nation.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
