Whats up?

Umm..Vivek and I traveled south to visit my grandparents at Madurai. They are octogenerians and I should probably visit them more often. We stayed for a few hours and granny stuffed us with so much food for lunch that we skipped dinner. Before leaving for Trichy to meet my brother, we visited the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai. Built in 1559 A.D and famous for its architecture, we looked at this huge temple with awe. It would take days to look at all the thousands of stone carved scriptures and the intricate paintings on the wall of the gods and goddesses. I have been there numerous times but was able to appreciate it much more this time. Made me wonder why India does not capitalize on such marvelous pieces of architecture by promoting tourism.

This is as adventurous as it gets - the journey from Madurai to Trichy in a local bus. The dark clouds over Madurai gave into a heavy downpour as the bus left Madurai. We were about 10 miles out of the city when the water started trickling into the bus over the people seated 2 rows ahead. I was relieved to find that my seat was not leaking. My fears came true within 10 mins and I found myself in a pool of water and edging towards V..the roof over my head wasn't leaking but the window was. It was quite a journey!

Work sucks today. Why are all projects so similar and non-stimulating? "Project Home" has left us with little time for the things we love to do.

I've been very lax in blogging of late. Last weekend was fun - V and I shopped a bit, digressing from what we were supposed to do. Saturday evening we met a few college friends for dinner whom we hadn't met since we graduated. It was fun. I'm losing count of the number of movies I'm seeing. "The Terminal" was good - tom Hanks at his best as always."Friends" is very much on my daily dosage - it has just moved from 6:00 p.m. CST to 10:00 p.m. IST. I better stop watching now..realise that I must have seen each season atleast 3 times as I know all the dialogues :(

Work has been taking up a lot of my time and effort. Working on a new technology called Java Server Faces. It is always exciting to work your way thr the challenges any new technology poses.....

I'm hoping this weekend will be fun (minus the traveling). V and I are visiting my grandparents at Madurai.

The Dark Side of Bangalore

Bangalore, India. Airport Road. Sunday, Sept 12, 6 p.m. Vivek and I were driving, enjoying the ride back home on the deserted streets, which is a rare thing. Our senses were awakened by a two-wheeler navigating in a zigzag manner. It made us wonder if he was trying to emulate Rubens Barichello, who stole the show at the Italian Grand Prix. The brilliant race that we had watched in amazement just a few minutes back, we were seeing it in action.

Ground Rules for Driving in Bangalore

1. Side paths are not for pedestrians. They are for 2 wheelers to jump the long traffic waiting at the red light.


2. Dotted white lines called lanes were drawn by people to beautify the road. They do not have any significance in traffic disciple or regulation. Jumping from one end of the road to the other gives one a high.


3. The colorful lights at an intersection (only if ANY, many don't have one so there is no room for confusion - CHAOS is the order), as they change from red to green causes the last person in the line to start honking. Expectation from everyone is the people in front of them should have flown by now...


4. Thanks to Horns..they were made to be honked..what good is a horn if it is so rarely used!


5. Pedestrians ..its your road..cross wherever you like. Truckers ..its your road too..so what if a pedestrian is crossing and gets crushed under. One less in a billion.


6. Only the educated honk - it is not uncommon to hear people praise about the roads and traffic discipline in U.S or other developed countries. But it is the same people when in India, start honking. What happened to all that you learnt outside ?


7. Who is the most busiest person in India -- well every person on the Indian roads? The honking and zig zagging tells it all?



8. An Indian Driver's motto - "I DON'T CARE"

Such is the plight of the traffic in Bangalore. On a weekday, it is worse. For a 10 Km ride it can take anywhere from 15-30 mins to get to work. According to Bangalore Times, the city is growing annually at a rate of 10% and tops the list in the number of road accidents every year. We could see a considerable difference in the surge in the number of vehicles and the population in Bangalore. This is one city I have been visiting since 1984. Once called "Garden City", it won't take long to be called "Garbage City". Good things come at a price. And so did it for Bangaloreans. It earned the name of Silicon Valley of India. The IT corridor of India proved to be a boon to locals - yesterday's middle class suddenly had huge disposable incomes. Vacationing in Europe was only in fairy tales, then with time it came a distant dream and within years they saw it happening. A Rs.1k rent for a room now fetches Rs.4k - yes a 400% inflation in a span of 3 years. All this has led to greed and more corruption. We are all paying the price for it. Though the lifestyle has improved considerably, the outlook has not changed. Life inside our homes is a heaven and outside is he**. Why don't people wish to return to India ? Well its because of all this. If each one made a consicous attempt at emulating all the good things learnt outside, we would have become a developed nation!

Google

Google is constantly in the news. This time for a different reason. Brilliant recruitment strategies by Google. First Google Jam and now this -

Sept. 14, 2004 -- Mysterious banners at a Cambridge, Mass., subway stop have commuters scratching their heads. The signs, challenging passers-by to solve a complicated math problem, are actually a cryptic pitch by Google, which is looking to hire more brainy engineers. Andrea Shea reports.

The message at Harvard Square also appears on a billboard in California's Silicon Valley, but Google's name is nowhere to be found on the ads. It simply states:

{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com

In case you're wondering -- or forgot -- e is the base of the natural system of logarithms, having a numerical value of about 2.71828 (though the number goes on forever).

The correct answer to the banner problem leads to a Web site that poses yet another puzzle. Eventually, the determined problem-solver lands at a Google Web page that asks the smart, or lucky, few for a resume.

--via Google Entices Job-Searchers with Math Puzzle on NPR

People Management

A common perception among developers - "Managers are only experts in Microsoft products - Outlook." As a developer during the initial years, even I have wondered what my managers do all day - just send mails, then why do we need them at all? But I realise now, people management is perhaps the most difficult part. Mastering a technology for a person with decent I.Q is no herculean task. But managing a team of 100 is something that competes with no technology. With 100 people you get this comprehensive package deal too- each one's way of working, their mood swings, their ability to adapt to others and to the working environment, their tolearance levels, how one reacts to stress and copes with boredom (yes no-work makes people very restless), disorganized yet creative workers, hard workers/smart workers, proactive/reactive workers. Great managers fascinate me. A very good article titled "What makes an effective executive" in the June 2004 edition of Harvard Business Review.

Great Managers may be charismatic or dull, generous or tightfisted, visionary or numbers oriented. But every effective executive follows eight simple practices.
What made them all effective is that they followed the same eight practices:

1. They asked, "What needs to be done?"


2. They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?"


3. They developed action plans


4. They took responsibility for decisions.


5. They took responsibility for communicating.


6. They were focussed on opportunities rather than problems.


7. They ran productive meetings - Meetings are often considered an "alternative to work". But I've seen the other side of it too. Not communicating the right thing at the right time with everyone across a table can only lead to frustration.


8. They thought and said "we" rather than "I".

Customer is God

Gone are those "Customer is the King" days. Customers came first despite a monopoly of one big player in every market. With numerous choices now for consumers in every market, there is no GOOD choice. Competition has increased and customer services has gone from bad to worse. Threats of cancellation do not work any more. My experiences in subscribing to a mobile connection was awful. I HATE CDMA but it was easier to go with Reliance. But a mere 10 mins in their customer center revealed what levels of service they offer - there were more yelling customers. Atleast customer care representatives in the US are a little courteous in answering and do not shout back as they do here. I wonder why companies here send auto responses to e-mails. If they cannot send a personalized response, then it is no good to have a e-mail contact at all. A good entry on Corporate voices and online communication strategy.

What's with best sellers?
On a recent visit to Borders and Hudson News bookstores, I observed with extra attention as to how many books have the line "New York Times bestselling author or best seller". To my surprise 18 out of the 20 books stacked on the shelves had this line. Isn't that amazing how every book published in the U.S is a best seller?

Well here is the list I follow every week. " The Da Vinci Code still tops the list after an year. Last evening curious to know how it was faring in India, I stopped at a roadside bookstore and was disappointed to see the customized paperback version of the book . Accustomed to seeing the red covered book, it didn't appeal much! I MISS Borders across the street..no easily accessible book store where I live. The next book on my list is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I've read his "Wild Sheep Chase".

Back to Chaos

The long uneventful journey started Monday morning at 11:30 a.m. The last thing I did at O'Hare was to taste a brownie from Starbucks - nothing like it. I was happy to see V waiting for me at my gate in Frankfurt the next morning. Contrary to expectations of a long waiting time at the Bangalore airport and a horrendous customs clearance like last time, this time was pretty smooth. I was very impressed by the courtesy of customs officials towards women. Lifting 2 35 Kg bags was not easy at O'Hare. Whereas here, 2 guys helped me do it and it felt good after the long journey.
It was a rollercoaster ride thereafter. The worst nightmare was to walk to a restaurant to get breakfast the next morning. Crossing the streets and the roadblocks at the intersection near our apartment scared us. V's white shirt turned black by the time we got back. We knew what we had chosen to come back to but the intensity of it did not strike us until the next morning. However, the generosity of our neighbours in helping us settle down felt good. During my 1 year stay at Chicago, I never got to know the name of my neighbors though everyone greeted everyone else with a "how you doing?". Almost a week later, we find ourselves caught in an attempt to strike off atleast 1 item of the fast-growing to-do list.

The Times of India newspaper is 50% lighter than the Chicago Tribune. We seem to miss the ads. Ads of Chicago Tribune with the "real" world news from The Times of India would be a good combination.