Get your vocabulary right..

"Netaon ne yeh kaha, Netaon ne woh kaha...Neta corrupt hain, Neta ghooskhor hain.."


They all are politicians damn it, not all are leaders!


Rajneetigya bolo, neta nahin!

Key to success..

I have been enjoying my vacation last two weeks and watched some episodes of KBC (Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire). As I watched many contestants from various parts of the country sit on the hot seat and play KBC with the legend, Amitabh Bachan, I got a valuable piece of learning -


Successful people are articulate.


Hearing about their backgrounds as they won the fastest finger first and then watching them converse with the host, I could see a high degree of correlation between the articulation of the contestants and their degree of success, success being measured by social and/or financial indicators. On the top right of this graph was the graceful host himself.


Of course, there are exceptions, as in sports. But you and I got the point, right?

Be poor, be rich, just don't be middle class...

The day before, Mom and I were returning home from Delhi and because of a traffic jam on our regular route, we had to make a detour through a lesser known village. After a long time, I saw groups of people sitting on Charpaais, enjoying desi hukka, and chatting happily. Everything was simple and it struck me how happy they seemed to be.


I couldn't help thinking -


There are the Poor and mostly uneducated...they don't know much about possibilities and they are happy..
Then there are the Rich and mostly educated...they know everything, they can buy everything and they are happy..
Then there is the Middle class...they are mostly educated, they know most things, they know the possibilities but they can afford little of these..they have learned to aspire and they spend most of their life in aspiration - aspiring for a sofa, aspiring for a car, aspiring for an aeroplane journey, aspiring to make their children 'rich'...they are the worst placed of all!


Moral of the story - Be poor, be rich, just don't be middle class!

A letter to Google..

Dear Google,


Hope you are innovating well.


A few days ago, I checked your new launch Google Plus. It looks so much like facebook. The profile pic is at the same location, friend suggestions show up at the same location, wall looks similar, '+1' is just another name for 'like', comments work the same way, and most other things are similar. Okay, they say hangout is cool and may be a couple more features.


The reason I thought to write this is because all along I have respected you for how you have changed our lives and I am baffled if you don't understand some basics here. First of all, its okay if you lose the opportunity in one of the many areas. You don't have to win everywhere. Second, they teach in business school that when you can't win the game, change the game. Especially in games with strong network effects! With all your technology horsepower, what we expected from you is not a cheap imitation but a completely innovative alternative to the facebook style. How long do you think it will take facebook to imitate 'hangout' if it clicks with people!


Look at twitter. Is this kind of game changer too innovative for all your thinktank? And I expect 'no' for an answer here from you. That ability to innovate is certainly not a problem with you, it's something else you need to fix. May be direction but don't ask me, I am an outsider.


Some people tell me you gathered x million users the fastest. I wouldn't be surprised. You are so respected that people want to try when you come up with something new, anything new! But this kind of imitation puts you at the risk of losing this respect specially as a few more exciting facebook and twitter like alternatives come up. By the way, the right metric to measure popularity wouldn't be the number of users for you (for the reason I stated above), it would probably be the number of users who log on specifically to Google plus at least once a day for a period of x days, given the nature of social networking - an average user logs on to facebook multiple times a day.


Long story short, may be you should relate the cliche With great power, comes great responsibility to what you are doing here.


Best wishes

Heard somewhere..

ये मत सोचो कि कितने लम्हे हैं ज़िन्दगी में...

ये सोचो कि कितनी ज़िन्दगी है हर लम्हे में!


Don't count the moments in life...
Count the lives in every moment!

Inspiring quote

Some is not a number, soon is not a date..

..be specific.

Being consultant..

There are three types of days in a consultant's life:

1. When client is working and the Firm is working - Consultant works
2. When client is not working but the Firm is working - Consultant works
3. When the Firm is not working but client is working - Consultant works

Comp(ensatory) offs?!! What are they?

But life is lousy for a consultant, I tell ya! Why? Here is how a friend put it:

1. You work very odd hours.
2. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
3. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
4. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
5. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.
6. People ask you what you do and you can't explain it.
7. It's difficult to have a family.

I agreed till I 'stepped back' and realized that he had just made me look like a prostitute!

But then sample my own experience when my girlfriend went to tell her mom about me:

1. Her mom didn't recognize my B school's name (IIM is known to every infant in India but ISB is not)
2. She had never heard my Firm's name (my firm doesn't brand/advertise itself)
3. She didn't understand even my profession (my girlfriend was also not very sure how to explain. Poor girl just believed me when I told her that I also do something respectable)
4. She was convinced that I do something shady when she heard that despite being from an unknown college, working with an 'obscure' firm, in an unheard profession, I earn well.

Only three letters do justice to my feelings...

...WTF!

Shifting loyalties..

I love writing blog but lately it went down on my priority list. A couple of days ago I saw a note on my blackberry that I had written on a flight in Jan this year. So I thought to revive my blog with this. Here it goes -

Enough! I have decided. Now on, I am going to take jet airways only. Their airhostesses are so much prettier than Kingfisher's! And the jet airhostesses said hi also to me, all of them.

I feel bad for having lost 37 opportunities to spend time with them over the last 6 months. Those kingfisher airhostesses would say hi to everybody ahead of me but when I come, they would start looking at the passenger behind me as if I wasn't there!

That apart, I admire NG's eye for beauty more than VM's who claims that he personally recruits his crew. But NG doesn't make any such claims anyway. It must be some obscure aspiring senior manager who is enjoying making offers (job offers I mean) to all those beauties who would otherwise not even notice him in the bar.

So, tomorrow's flight to Hyderabad is a jet now. And the day after's to Mumbai too. This reminds me, my imminent hyderabad trip is giving headaches to my girlfriend these days. I am going to ISB to take mock interviews of people shortlisted by the firm but she thinks I will get laid by some chick there who really wants an offer (job offer I mean). Though I secretly suspect she is convinced that my looks are not going to do wonders for me but still she is somewhat insecure because of the cult status of my firm which I have made her believe creates a bright halo around my head that blinds all ISB students. I have tried explaining to her that these are only mock interviews (as if the ladies would seek appointments to sleep with me if I were taking real interviews) and even showed her my packed mock interview schedule but she still believes girls would find a way to nab me. She doesn't know that kingfisher's airhostesses don't even acknowledge my presence. But as this rationale is based on my looks, which, I suspect, she discounts anyway, it wouldn't convince her. So I wouldn't mention it to her.

Why inflict humiliation on the self!