Not only the quintessential cynic but also the well-meaning, enterprising and proactive Indian youngster would end up saying this statement when commenting on the state of the country. The reason – one word – HELPLESSNESS.

India Against Corruption - always follow the official source

In this scenario, came a team led by Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi! All 3 with an impeccable history, sincere intentions and genuine passion. And all of a sudden the solution to the problem of corruption began taking form.

The country has backed them as it has backed no one since independence, barring the Indian cricket team. The idea of a peaceful, non-violent and people-driven protest – which almost seemed impractical in today’s society and only impressive in munnabhai movies – found takers in all sections of society – rich and poor; young and old; white and blue collar; public and private sector – across castes, religions and political affiliations!

However, a lot of intellectuals have brought forth some important questions (and by asking such righteous questions I think are actually supporting the movement) and this is my attempt at answering them and in the process justifying why I completely support Team Anna:

1. How many of the supporters have really read either the Lokpal bill or Jan Lokpal bill? Or how many even know how this change is going to take effect?
   A. The question is directed for the masses, many of whom I agree may not have read either bill. But let’s be honest, how many of us, especially the ones posing this question have read the Manifesto of the candidate they vote for in every election? How many of us have read the ‘terms and conditions’ of every email account, every Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn or Twitter account before signing up? Not everyone.

   If we find the summed-up benefit of what we are signing up for to be satisfactory, we go ahead and sign it without really reading every line of the agreements. The same applies to masses. They are seeing that a bill is being supported by not just some fundamentalists of the country and not just by people of a particular class of society BUT by very educated, refined and reflective people – including official support from the IITs, IIMs, lawyers, doctors, working professionals and so on. They see that the people opposing the bill are politicians, who as we all have now come to a consensus are largely corrupt. No wonder then that they believe this bill will solve the problem.

   BUT this is no excuse to not knowing the bills and I want to point anyone who doesn’t know the differences to look here: http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/downloads.html

2. Is this the right way to enforce your demands? Doesn’t this amount to blackmail?
   A. If this does, then so does any decision ever made. Most decisions are never made with a 100% consensus. That is expecting things to be extremely IDEAL. The movement for Jan Lokpal Bill started in April 2011. It went through an entire process of awareness, discussion and debate until mid-August 2011. All through this period, the communication channels of Team Anna and India Against Corruption were open.

   If you are asking this question, let me ask YOU – did you EVER in the time period from April to mid-August make an attempt to put your contrasting viewpoint to Team Anna?

   Even the time-line of the protests was announced much in advance. All this offered sufficient time for debate and discussion. In this time period, everyone sat peacefully at home watching news on TV and newspapers and let Team Anna go about the process of fighting with the Govt. and authorities. They eventually reached a version of the bill, and as already described NO ONE apart from the Govt. really objected to it until now. So logically this bill had everyone’s consent and it certainly seems to have the majority consent as of today. If that is the case, logically this is what must pass – what’s the blackmail? It’s like saying, just because a political party got majority seats in Parliament they are now blackmailing the others that they will form the Government.

   If you don’t agree with this, show us your method of formulating and establishing a strong anti-corruption law. If you can only say that this is wrong but I don’t know what is right – then honestly you don’t have a point.

   Do remember that sitting in the comfort of our homes, offices and clubs we can make seemingly sound plans and ideas. BUT executing and implementing them in reality is a completely different ballgame altogether. If you haven’t done anything and cannot, then please don’t criticize. Please have the maturity to understand the scale and complexity of the problem and it’s solution AND have the humility to change your stand and support the right cause.

3. Some few lakhs of people don’t represent the whole of India (this statement of course started with Shri (?) Digvijay Singh who said some thousands don’t signify Indian population)
   A. Maybe they don’t. But isn’t this the rule of a democracy? It gives you a right to vote, protest and freedom. If you practice this right, you are counted, if you don’t, you are the one losing out. Do we say that because only 35% people voted in this constituency let’s not consider the result? Do we say that because no single party got majority – so no single party really represents the people and hence no alliance government should be formed? NO we don’t!

   Similarly, each person has the right to protest, even against Team Anna’s protest. Please come out and make evident your displeasure with solid reasons as to why you don’t agree. Let there be a logical debate. Just resorting to individual tweets and Facebook status messages will only form an excuse for not coming out on the streets and doing that extra bit for your country.

4. 

   Arvind Kejriwal at the protest of India Against Corruption

   There are other problems in the country like illiteracy, female foeticide, farmer suicides. Why aren’t they solving that?
   A. Totally agree that these are very serious problems and there must be efforts to solve them. An awakened and inspired India is just the right setting for solving all these problems. But we cannot solve ALL problems at the same time, especially with a Government that doesn’t want to solve any problem voluntarily. Congress/UPA defended all the ministers it had to eventually put behind bars – Kalmadi, Raja (and hopefully more in the future). And Congress/UPA eventually acted against these ministers when it was forced by the exceptional judiciary of our country, ably led by Justice Kapadia (a man of great integrity and honor). In fact, deviating for a moment from the question-answer – the practice of taking a stand and then retracing to take that stand back – has become synonymous with Congress/UPA.

   Anyway, my point is that let’s start cleaning the system and solving the problems. Let’s make a positive start with this movement that offers not just hope but a real concrete solution.

5. Is Team Anna as pure and clean as is claimed?
   A. Team Anna is as pure as a team can be practically.

   Anna Hazare himself is beyond ALL suspicion. All attempts to prove the contrary by Manish Tewari were satisfactorily quashed.

   And Anna Hazare is the undisputed leader of the movement. Frankly even our PM now and certainly not our President has equally convincing credentials. As a natural consequence, this makes Team Anna more reliable and trustworthy than the team that runs our country. And which is a higher point of comparison than the teams vested with executive power.

6. [EDIT - Added on 22/08/2011] I respect Anna Hazare for what he is doing but I refuse to be told what is right by Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Bhushans.
   A. Why? Give us a good reason – why? You don’t refuse to what corrupt politicians make you do OR you don’t refuse to the local Mafia’s various tactics. But when a team led by able, honest, qualified and just people give you a solid effective proposal to solve the country’s problems – you refuse. Is it that your ability to read and write better than a large section of society makes you feel ‘intellectual’ in such a manner that you don’t like being ‘led‘? Is that you don’t want to associate yourself with the ‘masses‘? If not, give us good reasons as to WHY?

   Of all the ‘intellectuals‘ I spoke to and who didn’t agree with the way of this movement or the bill, nobody so far has given a single concrete reason as to why they don’t agree. Until you don’t provide such a reason, #1 you are not an intellectual or frankly not even logically sound #2 you are just making an excuse to not take any side – and trust me that is as bad as not voting in elections and then criticizing the system.

Ideally, there shouldn’t have been a need to provide these justifications or answers. But then again, nothing is IDEAL! :)

I intend to keep adding questions and answers to this post.

In conclusion, I truly believe in Team Anna and it’s movement. I have made a sincere attempt at understanding the scale, complexity and inherent challenges of pulling off such a drastic positive change in the country. And I am absolutely convinced that there is NO better way to put it across, to gather public opinion and to get it passed in a real practical world.

Let’s all come out and lend our support. Let’s not just talk to justify not taking any action. Let’s bring a positive change. I am Anna Hazare, are you?

‘abh hoga iss desh main kuch sahi… ‘ ‘ jaise chalte aaya hain, waise hi aage nahi chalega’

When Y’s car stops working, Y probably calls the garage and not X to help fix the car.

Move the pictured scenario to X = computer engineer. Now if Y’s computer breaks down, Y calls X, says ‘Mayday’ and expects X to help fix the computer!

Both a car and a computer are pretty complex things! So why the disparity? [In my case its probably got to do with the Indian IT syndrome - most Indians can fix software issues so all Y's, for me as a X, expect me to fix their computer!]

But really – why can’t a computer engineer always fix computer problems or an electrical engineer fix all kinds of electrical problems? Is it because most professionals tend to work more on the fancy stuff than on the basics? To succeed in their respective fields, each finds the need to evolve by adapting to the new/cutting-edge/innovative developments of his/her field. And in pursuing all of this, they keep moving away from the basics.

I guess most professionals do this. And they do it well. They excel at what they do daily, their niche skills become finer and finer and they compete with each other within a subset of their domain.

I did the same. Until I came across an interesting project.

My uncle (Harshad Kamdar) has been a very active contributor to a lot of initiatives, particularly the Vigyan Ashram and Save Bombay Committee (SBC). My father (Trilok Kamdar), as well, has been a leading Rotarian for over a dozen years. Through their acquaintances I first came across the Sevadham Trust Pune and met Dr. S.V.Gore. Dr. Gore had led numerous social efforts in the fields of medical care, poverty eradication and rural illiteracy since the 70’s. His trust also ran a tribal residential school at Malegaon-Khurd. As part of this school project, Sevadham had persevered since 1994 to convince the tribal groups in nearby areas to send their children to the school for education. As of 2009, they had over 340 students who were provided free education, accommodation, meals, uniforms, books and medical assistance. With the help of Rotary, the trust also setup a computer lab.

L to R: Nilesh in the classroom, the school, the computer lab and the area around.

When the three of us (I, Nilesh and Hitesh) met Dr. Gore we had no clear plan of how we wanted to contribute. Dr. Gore set up our first visit and offered the luxury of going in a jeep instead of the state transport bus (the quintessential Indian laal dabbas). The first trip was a defining experience. The school was located in a very remote village. Most of our modern low-ground-clearance cars could never tread on those approach roads. The bus came twice a day. There was barely any telephone or mobile-phone network (forget broadband!). Even the electricity supply was intermittent. And in the middle of all this, stood Sevadham’s Tribal Residential School.

After a brief interaction with the faculty, we had a session with the students. The students were initially hesitant and shy but after we spoke, in the local dialect, about games, sports, movies and music – they opened up. The enthusiasm was engaging! We had carried some  audio-video multimedia to introduce the students to technologies like email and Internet.

L to R: The workshop, the school students, me measuring my height, decorated class board

In the first survey visit, we saw their computer lab and spoke to the teachers on how to improve the teaching methodology. They were particularly keen on being able to access the Internet. We noted the things we could do and after an excellent lunch prepared by the school-kitchen, came back to Pune.

Then began our real work. Besides the prohibitively expensive Satellite Internet Access, the only way to bring Internet connectivity to the school was through cellular-data solutions. We approached major telecom carriers of the region and carried their SIM cards and USB-devices on our second trip.

This time around we decided to go without the jeep and use the public transport. And the ride to the school made for as much fun as the activities at the school – everything from an excessively crowded local train to a bus with metal benches and seats (that gave literal shocks due to the simmering heat of the Indian summer) to taking too long to walk from the school to the bus-stop and hence missing the day bus! Unfortunately, after performing a series of tests at the school we realized that unless we raised funds for a satellite-dish based Internet setup, there was little chance of connecting these students to the outside world.

On our subsequent trips to the school and it’s events, we used easily-available resources (such as our laptops, multimedia devices) to conduct some interesting sessions for the school students. While doing this, I was already thinking of the idea of taking the Sevadham school model and applying it to other rural schools around Pune. I had seen how Sevadham had overcome the problems of limited resources and challenging logistics to bring the power of computers to rural students.

Thanks to my Uncle again, I came to know of LAHI (Lend-A-Hand-India) and their ‘PLAN100′ project. As part of the ‘PLAN100′ project, LAHI ran a supplementary school curriculum, called Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT), that attempted to bridge the gap between rural school education and real-world job skills. The existing IBT curriculum did not include a focus on computer training. I approached Sunanda Mane at LAHI with a proposal to enhance their program by including computer education. In parallel, I took to convincing TIBCO to donate used computers as part of a CSR initiative. Both things worked out well and we began the process of planning the pilot program.

The idea was to cover 5/6 schools initially with 9 to 10 computers in each school (3 each for classes 8th, 9th and 10th). We would setup the computer labs, provide initial training to the faculty and formulate a basic syllabus. We would also possibly provide evaluation criteria to the teachers. The schools were chosen based on 2 main criteria. Firstly, if a school had reasonable access to phone and Internet, then we would prefer such a school since  it would allow us to evaluate the full scope of our project. Secondly, if the students at a particular school had easy access and exposure to computers then we would prefer another school where the access was limited.

After a lengthy transfer process, we now have the computers with us and each weekend is spent in a dusty garage trying to assemble functional machines  by combining working parts from different old computers. While doing this, I have come back to my computer engineering basics. When in college, my practical experience was limited to standard hardware problems and issues. But working with a completely unknown set of machines, I now fully understand the beep codes, layouts of different motherboards, mix-and-match combinations of RAM and resolutions to BIOS and CMOS Battery issues! We’ve literally burnt our fingers with wires going short, spent more time planning organization of working and non-working computers than actually organizing them and rejoiced at the sight of a loading operating system following a flicker on the monitor of a completely assembled machine!

L to R: A visibly pleased Suyash with a working computer, the pile up of hardware, Suyash getting his hands dirty on the CPU, sea of monitors and CPUs

At this juncture of LAHI’s ongoing project, I felt compelled to reflect on how the experience has come a full circle. After working for over 3 years in the high-tech computer jargon industry of service-oriented-architecture, business process management and cloud computing – I have come back to the very basics of a computer!

I am aware that this post is going to set my phone ringing with ‘Dude my computer’s down, fix it!’ calls. I am aware that too many weekends are going by  in a boring dark garage. I am aware that a similar amount of time and effort devoted to the stock market could have made me richer.

But at the same time, I am aware that this slightly unconventional effort has been fun, has taught me a lot and has been immensely satisfying.

I want to urge anyone and everyone who reads this post – to take that time and go away from the urban jungle, to take that time and connect to students with addictive energy and passion, to take that time and go back to their field basics and to take that time and do something different.

—–

* – borrowed from true experiences :)

Enormous history

Brilliant food

Oh and yes a 5-letter country name starting with an I

I _ _ _ _

India <->Italy

Central Pyramid facing the Louvre

The Trip. Air France. Fat man in seat beside. Squeeze. Push. Slide. Phew! Fat man fit! First, fat man drink a lot. Then, fat man snore a lot. New found respect – ear plugs, sleep masks.

Paaree. CDG. RER B. Denfert Rochereau. Wait. Enter Gayatri (*applause*). Metro Line 6. Eiffel Tower! *click*  Souvenirs. Metro. Champs-Élysées.

Place de la Concorde Fountain (me no remember name – thanks amey mankar). Louvre. Ultra optimized viewing – super Gayatri. RER to airport. Plan change. Get off RER. Lunch. Back on RER. CDG. Waiting Lounge. Meet cool Canadian. Fun talk.

Verona Airport. Less happening than Pune Airport. No customs, no immigration (weird). Quick exit. Cab. Solo Italiano :| Not know Hotel. Next cab. Next cab. Yes cab! Reach Hotel – No booking! Perfetto! Good ol’ Indian jugaad. Get room.

The restaurants at Piazza Bra - the focal point for tourists in Verona

First client interaction. Tie-Blazer (*too formal*). Everyone in tie-blazer (did not help). Given desktop. Cannot use laptop. Worst, cannot use internet. Think of excuse – work efficiency will be affected – excuse not speak much of my abilities. Cancel excuse. Work :(

Lunch. Pizzeria. THE Italian Pizza. Thin crust, awesome cheese. Wine! Fun. Receipt. Not fun. Next lunch, coke or acqua naturale.

Dinner. Piazza Bra. Actual name. Not made up. Lovely place. More awesome food. Weissbier. Happy. Nice people around at square. More happy :)

Friday. Discreetly make weekend plan. Find train. Find bus. Find youth hostel. Forgot, find friend! Only bus found. No worry.

Saturday. Early morning (yes really!). Sack + me > train station. Find train! Awesome train! Frecciagento (silver arrow). Eurostar. Nice. Nicer person in facing seat. Nicest time.

Nice ends. Rome. Termini. Buy return ticket. No ticket on direct train. Buy connections. Mess up. No bus when reach Verona. Damn, use taxi. More Euro gone!

Colosseum (Roman Coliseum) - Flavian Amphitheatre

Forget ticket problem. Buy Roma pass. Linea B. Termini-Colosseo. Walk out of station. Bang. Colosseum. Awesome. Long line. Pretty solo tourists. Talk. Line wait tolerable :) Go inside. Brilliant. Read history, see paintings. *click* Roman Forum. Palantine Hill. Broken buildings. Ruins. IMO, excessive history. Sun + walking = less appreciation of early Roman Empire. Get out of Palantine Hill. Go to Pantheon. Buzzing square. Tourist herds. Gelato! Shiva-Prashant join. Pantheon – beautiful. Piazza Navona – beautiful. Piazza di Spagna – beautiful. Realize same adjective too often.

Piazza Venezia – bus – Termini – pizzeria dinner – tram – Hotel – crash.

Sunday. Hotel tells Vatican Museum + Sistine Chapel = closed for Sunday. Perfetto! Shiva-Prashant go to Pisa. I to Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica. Find the now common Italian long queue. More common – old lady nonchalantly walks in front of you. Audaciously gets in place before you. I stunned. Feel like a fool. Lesson – it happens not just in India.

Lucky Sunday. Pope addresses the crowd. Crowd goes berserk. I not quite understand the frenzy. I *click*, back in queue. See St. Peter’s Basilica. Brilliant. Tomb of Popes – ok. Buy souvenir. Out. 4 hours to train. Hop on random bus. Go till last stop and back. See Rome.

Termini – Train – Verona – expensive cab – hotel – buonanotte.

Roof of Basilica di San Marco and Venice view - From Bell Tower

Busy week – office. TIBCO. UniCredit. phone. webex. Good part – pastas, lasagne, NUTELLA!, mozzarella, wine.

Again Friday. Again discreetly make weekend plan. Find train. Found train.

Saturday. Early (again!). Heavy breakfast. Verona Porta Nuova Train Station. Venezia Santa Lucia! 6.15 Euros only. *thinks – this side of Italy cheap?* Vaporetto to Piazza San Marco – 6.5 Euros *cancels previous thought* St Mark’s Square. St. Mark’s Basilica. Bell Tower. Pan view of Venice. *click* Quick lunch. Walk to Academia. Follow yellow sign boards. Tag along with solo tourists. Academia house art museum. Not so interested. Walk to Rialto. *click* Meet Marina (Uncle’s friend). See Venice markets. Gondola token ride. Walk to see Venice lagoon – Murano-Burano islands. About to rain. Walk back to Santa Lucia. Verona. Hotel. crash.

Sunday. Day for Verona and shopping, finally! Breakfast (eventful, not discussed :)). Go buy Verona pass. Told – Verona closed. Goddamn bicycle race :-| Plan flop. Stuck in hotel. Find every online friend and bore them. Plan moved to 2nd June, day before flying out.

Gondolas, Venice

Last week. Great dinners. Great colleagues. Every night at Piazza Bra – Piazza Erbe, Verona.

Tuesday. Buy fine wine. Buy Parmesan. Talk to colleague – plan to roam Verona + shop on Wednesday. Colleague laugh. Not without reason. Wednesday – Italian Republic Day. Italy closed. No shopping. Less traveling. Screwed. Royally. Buy any available chocolates. Damn, European stores close by 7.

Thursday morning. Leave hotel early, reach airport early (2 hr 45 mins before), want to check-in early – routine that always works to get emergency exit window seats. Realize that Verona is not a happening airport. No one at check-in counters! Perfetto! Wait 45 mins. Counter opens! Lady informs cannot choose seats since system in Verona is different than in Paris :-| Air France still in Renaissance age. Take given seat. Reach Paris 10 minutes late. 1 hour 10 mins to next flight. Different terminal. Bus. Walk. Sprint. Run. Reach gate as on boarding pass. No Mumbai flight at that gate :-| Run to changed gate. Last passenger to board. Walk to seat. Angry stares.

Thursday night. CS Intl Airport. Mumbai. Maharashtra. India!

Note: Italy no affect English.

1. I would never buy a Chinese phone! They get screwed up quicker than you can learn to say “Ni hao” or they have some weird-ass features like the one in KCK’s –> so no voice recorded self-reminders and no KCK calls – the case of “na rahega baas, na bajegi basuri!”
2. I wouldn’t top the college. Ok, assuming I did, I would never go to IIMs and even worse I would never ever break CA records. So no self-frustration –> no wonder his alter ego was pissed at him. Who in his right mind would want such records?
3. I would send the mails to DP and not keep them saved in drafts –> another reason to back our alter ego getting pissed @ K theory
4. Hehe this one is totally not applicable in my case – 5 AM! Even if my alter ego got to me and set this alarm/reminder for me at 5 AM, I would never get up to listen to it!! –> and hence they say, good habits saves the man
5. If you had a girlfriend like Deepika Padukone (I am ok with the alter ego’s help till I get her), you might be into live-in :D And with that, she would so obviously figure out if you are waking up in the middle of the night and talking to no one on the phone –> I am ok if this one fails, meaning if she doesn’t wake up and figure out. The very thought of having her as your girlfriend is livable with the alter ego waala panga (and to all critics of her acting skills – seriously why are you even concerned?)
6. Unlike in the movie where Mr. K subconsciously listens to the important things (like his colleague’s hush-hush wife and son in Delhi or his boss’s affair, etc.), I would be attentive! These are such critical things in making life interesting at work :D –> this doesn’t in any way imply with certainty that I resort to such things for fun at work. And in the context of this post, it actually meant that since I knew these important tid-bits consciously, my alter ego’s knowledge is no longer omg material.
   

Am sure there are more but I just picked these few for now. Honestly the movie is not bad, it’s pretty good (IMHO). Mr. K’s character and acting was pretty close to being believable (unlike a certain “his name is Khan” – who would have probably consciously kept calling himself to hear his own voice and please his narcissistic self!). And Ms. DP looked stunning! And to believe that an in-my-own-little-world K would be able to woo her as a result of a few self-calls!! Am getting that Chinese phone…

You here is me and many folks like me. There are, of course, exceptions to the above but more or less represent the prevalent pattern. We want it all – NOW and fast.

My father (and all those from his generation) tell me that it wasn’t so in their times (and so weren’t many things, but…). Which makes one think as to why it is so now. Is it because we have the option of doing a lot different things making wasted time a tangible loss OR is it because our gen simply lacks the focus or will to do long-time-taking tasks?

At any point, when we are doing one thing, our mind is consciously (or subconsciously) thinking about the next/alternative/different thing that we could/would be doing soon or possibly at that very same moment. And this is not exactly multitasking.

Or when we look at or take up a task that is going to be long and time-taking, we need to keep persuading ourselves to stay focused. It definitely doesn’t come naturally (or at least to me it doesn’t).

Both imply that we don’t think the present task deserves as much time and attention as it is getting now. Logically it should follow that we would know for sure of some other task which deserves this time and attention. Funnily though most of us, from the impatient janta, are actually idling our time away or doing things of no consequence/benefit.

Putting all this together means we are doing both – rushing through tasks which could benefit from forbearance AND wasting our precious time away in self-described timepass activities!

This could be true and I could pat myself for analyzing myself so well.

Or maybe it is not as simple a choice between too-many-things-to-do-at-any-time or too-boring-to-do-what-i-am-doing-now..

“Ass… ass… ass…. ass…. Superhits 93.5” goes one of the FM radio channels in Pune… until sometime back, this terribly sad jingle played EVERY 5 minutes on this particular radio station… Jingle apart, the station has a hilarious group of RJ’s – including one who has a neither-here-nor-there voice [a voice that hasn't cracked as yet] – while another probably stammers on air [no offense to any one who stammers but don't try to speak fancy while stammering!]. The RJ’s follow up their anthem jingle with an even pathetic punch line “Theerka re theerka, masti main theerka!” And after all this if you are still listening to them, then you will find that the music they play tops it all! In trying to cater to both – the Marathi and Hindi audience – they make a mash of it and often play absolutely unheard of songs [and which are actually better off that way]. Very recently, it seems, this station has changed itself to ‘Red FM 93.5 bajaate raho‘ and has since then been less embarrassing for themselves.

Not going frequency wise but rather by the order of dislike – next comes ‘[self-proclaimed] Pune’s number one radio station – Radio City 91.1 FM!’ Radio City, actually is not so bad but at the same time, ends up having nothing interesting or fun about it either! Some time back, as and when I used return late from office and flip to this station; they would have this deep baritone voice – who would more often than not be taking a call from one his fans [read: friends he pleads to or folks he gives prizes/incentive to!] and discussing why he is so good [!!!] – [and yes he would make the very-obvious-sounding attempts to play the praise down and act modest :)]. Off late in the evening slot, someone with a “double A” has probably taken the place of deep-baritone and is actually much better.

Next in my personal list comes the ‘oldest and most popular‘ radio station of Pune – ‘Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM – it’s hot [:-|]‘. And I have to write about the worst RJ man has had to endure – RJ Shrikanth! But before I talk about his disastrous work on air, I would like to mention, that Shrikanth single-handedly killed all the interest of the crowd at AR Rehman’s concert in May this year. He was such a letdown, that some sponsors probably pulled back their adverts or thanks being mentioned by him, rather than having those come from ‘His Master’s Voice’. Shrikanth cracks the worst jokes on air and unfortunately no one stops him :( More unfortunately, the other RJ’s on this station are no better… These two female RJ’s [smita and aditi maybe?] discuss their clothes, neighbors and god-kn0ws-what on AIR and unnecessarily so in English. I have always wanted to tell them – that it’s completely possible to speak ONLY in Marathi and sound cool but speaking in English with a Marathi undertone ends up making both the languages sound bad! But keeping all this aside, they have SUD [who I know a lot of people hate!] and I think he is brilliant! His opinions about his boss, his tragic marriage plans, his falling in love with his office colleague [Suchi Smita], his hiring Pinky detective agency to snoop around Suchi and some phoren-return dude friend of hers – IMHO all of it is too funny! He is the only reason why I place Radio Mirchi after Radio city in my dislike-meter.

And finally, a station which is probably the ‘best amongst the worst’. Radio One – 94.3 FM. Radio One has some plusses to it:

• Good RJ’s – Sangram is absolute fun to listen to when he is at his witty-best – as also when he is concerned about the stock markets :); Gya is smart, energetic, wacky and once-in-a-while-the-shayaar; Subhav has started English music late in the evenings [though of course his mix or choice is something not to be commented on as yet!]; Meenal seems to be the chatterbox – and with that I think I know this station really well!
• The music generally is decent – they keep it simple by playing the popular songs only – though that’s exactly the reason why everyone flips stations – listening to the same songs repeatedly gets very boring – Radio ONE if you ever read this – please change this aspect!
• Ghanta Singh – he used to be really good… after the initial buzz, more or less he has been quite uncool – way below the SUD level
• And I think they play the most hated ads with lesser frequency – like the ‘khao vimal re, khao vimal re… vimal pan masala, isme hain asli Kashmiri kesar ka dum or something-on-those-lines’

Of course since I crib so much about these stations, I must be listening to them very often. Reason being I am very lazy when it comes to burning/buying CD’s and hence depend on radio while going/coming back from office and generally driving in the city. When going out of the city though, ipod + itunes = the best combination – but this makes sense only when you have a good navigator-cum-ipod jockey! :)

1. Seeing two different markets was a confusing factor in the beginning. However, later on I started seeing the occasional disparity in the price of the same stock on NSE and BSE. I then thought-out-of-the-box [in my personal opinion ONLY] of buying from one exchange and selling on the other and making a neat profit intra-day! Of course with my first such transaction, I quickly came to realize that Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parikh were way too intelligent than me!
2. This lesson was followed by a pair of new “terminologies”. “Bonus” and “Split”. The former sounded so simple in it’s possible implication. However, since I had burnt my fingers with my previous creative-thinking, I decided to find more about how bonus/splits work. So I got in touch with some “informed” friends, who, well, misguided me. Since then I have gone back to basics and asked only my well-read and really-concerned-about-my-money Dad.
3. The previous two experiences were nothing as compared to this one! :) This of course was my grand grand decision of investing heavy in the market the night the bailout package was almost approved by US Congress – the next day the markets tanked – and Ramalinga Raju hadn’t even hit the markets yet!!! I didn’t realize the logic for days and kept arguing with people who explained it to me that it was because of the long drawn process of the bailout package, the uncertainties of how/where the money would be spent and that it was lesser than what our dear Bernanke bhai had asked for. Anyway, who cared about the reasons after the money was out, the stocks were in and my portfolio was RED.
4. I became very conservative after the above experience and came to realize the large-scale significance of US markets on global economy. During this phase, I came up with this scientific identification of the relation between US and Indian markets . This relation held true only till Diwali or so after which often the Indian markets would behave differently than the others!
5. As a result of all these bad experiences with stocks, there came a small period of time when I was absolutely convinced that Mutual funds are the ONLY way to go. I developed this active interest in all available and performing funds then. I sounded more like an ICICIDirect.com salesman making a pitch rather than discussing why we should plan our tax investments in advance – and all this was to an audience that didn’t really care about either [my team members! :)]
6. I also had these sincere attempts at making plans to read/learn up on Futures, commodities and the works which resulted in my sincere failures at doing any of the same.

Gradually, in a lot of ways, I have come back to where I started
- having that list of “my picks” stocks [which is much refined and in general been good for me consistently]
- I ring up my father before any buy/sell
- I do all the math related to profit/loss
- but I more or less keep it simple, i.e. I buy for a period greater than a year and track once in few weeks

In between all these tragic and terrible experiences at the stock market, there were also a lot of moments of brilliance that helped me make some money :) Fortunately the book overall has been green and healthy!

So in this entire process, I have come to learn a lot – and not just about the markets – but about
- companies and enterprises [and their well-planned frauds]
- rich performing public sector that becomes poor and poor performing public sector that becomes lazier or non-existent
- the jazzy economic words and terms
- the mass-philosophy of buying/selling
- the importance of rumors and working principles that make rumors work!
- and I still have the chapraasi life sciences ltd. :(

1. Starting off with Oracle strategy for Eclipse and other development tools [a key question was asked towards the end. Now that Netbeans is in the kitty, how does the priority for Eclipse change - and Dhiraj stressed that JDeveloper and Eclipse are the order in which their priorities remain - big point?]
2. Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse [OEPE] and it’s component structure
3. All the features of the above mentioned plug-in and relevant tools
4. A very interesting new feature ‘Fast Swap’ – which aims to cut the Edit>Build>Deploy>Test to Edit>Test!! This was illustrated with an example
5. With a concluding demo + some good Q&A – Oracle finished well

Unfortunately for the next “sponsored” session, the previous session had overshot it’s time. This did not deflate Bharath K from IBM who spoke on Enhancing the productivity of RAD using Websphere. I, however, spent most of the next 20 minutes filling the feedback form.
Once done [!!] with the sponsored sessions, we were back to the 3 parallel tracks. While Ilya’s workshop on Design Patterns Used in Eclipse garnered much interest, there was one track which had 3 sessions.