Sundays at Tiffany's -- The Book Review

"I miss you already" .. Or so said Michael and now a few hours after finishing the book, I feel a similar longing in my heart: I am already missing James Patterson's Sundays at Tiffany's (co-written with) Gabriel Charbonnet). Apart from Love story and then Oliver's Story, no other romantic book has been able to capture my attention like this one. And what a splendid write-up this book was!





Now I associate James Patterson normally with novels centered around crime, mystery and serial killers. James Patterson has produced some awesome fictional characters - Alex Cross, The Women's Murder Club and the Maximum Ride series. So, this novel was a bit of a pleasant shocker for me. I mean, the romance genre is as far and as diverse as he could manage. Now, I am no romantic - The only romantic novels I ever read were Erich Segal's Love Story and Oliver's Story. Both of these were great novels, so simply, eloquently and emotionally written. And something told me that this novel might turn out to be just as good, despite romance not being the author's forte (at least, with the number of novels published in the serial killer and mystery genre, no one can question his knack for getting the chill across).

Now getting back to the book, the story trails the life of a young girl whose world is built around an imaginary friend. Actually, saying that it trails the life of Jane is a bit of a misnomer -- The book is only about the aprt where Michael has to leave Jane when she turns 9 and then the second aprt deals with how Michael and Jane are reunited. However, nothing has been mentioned of the interim period when the imaginary friend leaves the young kid and by a quirky twist of fate, is reunited with the now grown-up girl Jane. I am actually thankful to the author for not dragging the book or making it too complicated. Besides Jane and Michael, there are only a handful of characters to deal with and with a crisp writing style, you can't just help but keep turning the pages one after another. Though readers may find the other characters quite sterotyped and atypical, it's the girl and her imaginary friend who grasp the attention of the readers from Page 1.

Most romantic novels have a happy ending yet after going through Eric Segal's Love Story and Oliver's Story, I know that happy endings are not a must. And with the way this book has been composed, it had a surreal feeling about it all throughout! And yet there is always the feleing that this was just the sweetener, somewhere somehow the author will lose the plot and make a mess of this fine love story. But credit to both the authors for maintaining, sustaining and ultimately delivering one of the most suspensefully joyful endings I've stumbled across!

I'll suggest all readers to try this book at least once; if not buy it then just go to the coffee shop somewhere in the bookshop and devote a spare hour to this novel. I am sure you'll be hooked to the novel and ultimately, just like me, you too will start missing the book once it's over!

N.B.: Just a word of caution: Do not go in expecting a lot of complicated stuff or a flood of emotions from the book, it's written very simply and hence it's imperative that you treat it like a simple book too! Try and feel the undercurrents of love flowing through the book. Though the authors could have tried harder and made the other characters feel a bit more real and wanted, I am nonetheless pleased with the book and well... Yes, I've been missing it already! ... sigh ...

The MAA of all Reality Shows!!

Hey readers, I was just going through the posts of a fellow blogger when all of a sudden, a crazy idea manifested itself in my mind. However, before you proceed, a word of caution: I am currently in a crazy, zapped state of mind and I intend being in this bent frame of mind for another 2-3 days or so! Any one hurt by the views expressed below should go and sue the blogger who sowed the seeds of the following idea in my mind! Now, if you are done reading the safety regulations et al, can we proceed?

After going through the post, I thought that why such a useless debate: I mean, dance all you want, it's your life, we are in the world's biggest democracy and man, let's just face it, we do much more crazier things on TV these days than simply watching a few gals dance semi-nudely! And as they say, there is money to be made in every venture -- so why don't we monitize this debate nationally while letting the people, the makers of this democracy, decide whether or not the dancing of the cheerleaders and the ban on the dance bar girls should stay? I mean, relaity TV show's formats are becoming real cliched these days and we desperately need some controversy and new format so why don't we make a three-part reality show out of this entire debate?

In the first part, our esteemed judges (one of them has to be Rakhi Sawant --- hee hee hee) will conduct a nation-wide hunt to procure the best of the best dancing bar girls in the country (we may even go international -- cool, huh??) post which we shall publicize the whole thing and like all reality TV shows go, get 3 final girls who will parade their stuff (i.e. their skimpy outfit-clad dance moves) country-wide.. The audience poll would then decide the ultimate winner among these Indian dance bar girls while the judges will try their level best to ensure that the best dancers stay on the show and are not eliminated because of some misconceived or conceited public voting.

The second leg of this show will see the foreign cheerleaders (currently here for the IPL) who will then fight to come out trumps as the Miss World Cheerleader and in the final part, the top 3 participants from the earlier two parts will go head-to-head to determine which of these breeds or genres of dancers -- the bar girls or the foreign cheerleaders -- shall be allowed to dance wherever they want -- be it in dance bars, on national TV or at public parties!!

Now wouldn't this be a great, money-minting idea?? I mean, just think about the TRPs -- they are going to go through the roofs! Sponsors will flock and fight over a 10-second ad slot on this show -- mark my words, my dear readers, this show will be the BAAP, errr... sorry for the gender error, the MAA of all shows!! Move aside IPL, SRK's kya aap paasvi paas se tez ho, Indian Idol, saas-bahu serials -- it's the season of the Dance shows and the MAA of all reality shows is here and how!!

N.B.: The blogger who sowed the seeds of this visionary, revolutionary idea has a private blog. So, I am taking the liberty to copy-paste, i.e., plagiarize her post without seeking due permission from the concerned Blogger!! Ho sake to mujhe maaf kar dena --

Yesterday there was this debate on television against the presence of
cheerleaders in the IPL matches. There was some old politician talking about
culture and censorship on one side and Prahlad Kakkar on the other side-
laughing at him :D I also thought that a mountain is being created out of a
molehill. If this is what people want to watch- well, let them! Don't make moral
judgements against anyone. Just chill...!

Then came the head of the Mumbai Bar Girls' Association. I was totally
expecting some wierdly dressed middle aged women screeching into the camera (a
la Rakhi Sawant)... but was pleasantly surprised to find an elderly, soft-spoken
lady who just made a very small and valid point.She says that 2 years back these
dance bars were closed down in Mumbai on the pretext that these girls are
scantily dressed and watching them dance like this in public is "wrong".

Now the same government is allowing American females to be scantily dressed
and dance in public and that too on national television. This is a clear case of
being double-faced and the very grounds on which they had closed the bars, now
stand violated.

I mean why fight when you can dance and cordially sort the issue?? I hope all parties concerned adopt my suggested idea and I get a hefty royalty payment from it. And hey, with food crisis being such a hot issue, here is my second take (errr.. not mine) on the food crisis where the author defends the biofuels that are being targeted as the culprits for the current crisis! Enjoy reading!

Official doldrums!

Hey readers, have you ever felt victimized? Ever felt that you were being dealt with unfairly, harshly? That you and you alone were being discriminated against while the rest of the world went about doing anything they wished and got away with it too!!

Yes, you are (sic) right -- such is a fate is being dealt out to this writer! the writer feels victimized by the office policies and the harsh treatment which was meted out to yours truly a few months back -- a punishment so severe that it tainted his perception of the world, of the people around him. And before you feminists gear up and stage a drama, take a chill-pill ladies! This time the tables have been tuned on us unfortunate guys.

Okay okay, so maybe by now you are wondering why I am being so hypersensitive and acting so weird and all so pumped up! trying my best to vent out my frustration yet falling short of words!!

We all know how we Indians love to have a lovely lunch and what is a beautiful lunch without a small teeny-toony nap?? Tell me tell me --- haven't our elders preached all along that "khaane ke baad thoda aaram farmaana chahiye"?? So what's wrong with taking a nap after lunch in office? I mean, hell, we spend more of our time in office than at home with our family! Doing household chore seems more like a task than doing even the most mundane of office jobs! So aren't we even entitled to a small nap in the entirety that we spend at office, our home-away-from-home?

So yours truly was very rightly exercising his right to take a nap when he was asked to visit the manager! There he was asked a few questions and to rid him of his sleep, the manager handed him a quiz -- yes sirrie, a quiz of all the rotten things in the world! Imagine my plight, what trauma engulfed me then and there! Anyways, what happened after that is another story, to be discussed some other time altogether!

Anyways, why I feel discriminated against is because the ladies in this office (and there are plenty of them and they easily outnumber the guys -- did someone mutter lucky dude??) are allowed to indulge in this napping practice for as long as they want! HEIGHTS of discrimination?? Is any one listening? Where are all the male chauvanists when you need them? I mean, look at these females, on one hand, they demand to be treated as equals while on the other hand, they go ahead asking for reservations, higher tax exemptions, preferential treatment et cetera et cetera!!

Anyways, enough blabbering for the moment, I got to go do some work but before I take your leave, here is one article on the current food shortage which I feel is worth your time.. Click here to view the same and enjoy reading!

The Outsourcing Conundrum

Let me begin this post by sharing this joke with you that I received at work from one of my seniors (yes, again).. Read the joke carefully, it highlights the emotions of the people residing in the greatest (self-proclaimed) nation of the world, the United States of America (USA).

An Israeli doctor says "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can
take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work
in six weeks."

A German doctor says "That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one
person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.


A Russian doctor says "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can
take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both
looking for work in two weeks."

The Texas doctor, not to be outdone, says "You guys are way behind, we
recently took a man with no brains out of Texas, put him in the White House for
eight years, and now half the country is looking for work.

I sure hope you liked the joke for I simply loved the sarcastic dig taken at the Americans at the end of it. The ending epitomises so many things which are uniquely American: Their advancements in technology that are bettered by no one else (okay, okay, I can hear a few protests already); their President who is renowned for making public goof-ups at the drop of a hat and yet he gets elected for a second term as the President and finally, the outsourcing of jobs which has disgruntled many Americans and left even more without a job. However, I wonder why they are disgruntled now for weren't they the ones who pushed the envelope towards cheaper, better goods? What ever led to the origination of the sweat shops in China and other cheap labour-intensive countries where Lee and Nike manufactured their lines of clothes and shoes in the early '90s? [Please correct me if I am quoting the wrong names here; I recall having read these in the book "NO LOGO" by Naomi Klein about 3-4 years back.]

The American consumers and the then-shareholders of these companies were not complaining then and as for the sweat shop workers -- well, let's just say that neither the companies nor their own governments were much concerned about their well beings. Even the workers did not make much of a noise as holding on to a job was much more important than good working conditions. Thanks to the strength of the dollar, especially against the weaker currencies of the developing nations, the workers were paid pittance compared to the average wages of a job of a similar nature in the U.S. The Americans -- from the consumer to the shareholders -- enjoyed this cost effective way of manufacturing foods which made quite a few of these brands competitive and highly profitable ventures. Companies which did not set up such shops had to work extremely hard to make ends meet -- forget about matching the impressive margins posted by the companies indulging in the trade-off of manual labour known as "outsourcing".

2 decades later, the same people want the jobs returned to their country, the USA .. they have had enough of the outsourcing bit and now with joblessness on the rise and the economy into a recession, people have woken up from a deep slumber to realise that while they had initially only outsourced manual labour, over the course of time, these small, weaker developing nations have taken the art of outsourcing and delivering work to the next level -- so much so that there is a lack of jobs for the people back home!

Sounds funny?? Or does it seem reasonable? I believe in life being a give and take sort of a relationship and int h adage "what goes round comes around" -- The USA took a lot out of the world, now the world is taking its due out of the USA. It's a symbiotic relationship -- neither can survive without the other. Turmoil will ensue but balance too will be restored -- hopefully sooner than later. I sure dream of the day when we can outsource our work to USA -- though the upbringing we have had, I believe we may end up treating them fairer and better than what we were subjected to!

N.B.: I may sound like a hypocrite to some of you for I [and others like me] are helping these companies outsource most of the work from USA to India but but .. .. .. I shall defend my honour some other day! 'Til then, play hard and keep cheering Knight Riders (hee hee hee)..

Nibblotiation -- The Secret Art of Negotiation!

Well before I start blabbering about the topic in the typical Indian-MBA style, let’s wish the proud owner of the blog Mr. Varun Parwal a very very special birth day and congratulate him for getting his FRM degree….Yes readers now he is a certified FRM degree holder.

Now getting back to the topic, Nibblotiation is word coined by yours truly so the pochemuchkas [meaning, those who ask a lot of questions .. Simply put, a person with an inquisitive bug up his/her ... errrrrrrr... spine!! Got the meaning?? If not, then check out the meaning @ http://pochemuchkas.wordpress.com/] don’t have to go back to their basics as you will not find it in any dictionary or in any general diction. Before I tell you all about the word and its importance in marketing, I'll like to illustrate how the word was actually derived:

Nibble + Negotiation = Nibblotiation

So you got it? While you negotiate, add a nibble to it and there you go -- voila, the word Nibblotiation is born. Ha ha, okay, so it wasn't even this simple and easy. Read further to actually learn how the word wasderived and a real life-time example of this tactic:

Nibble is a negotiation tactic that primarily deals with Sales Personnel's patience and perseverance and ther elative degree of the customer's success in affecting it. Now what is negotiation? Though I am not half as acclaimed an individual as the lot who have written numerous definitions of negotiation, I have defined the term as a use of information and power to affect someone's behavior off the job. It’s a common myth that negotiation is a mutually exclusive event where if 1 party wins other is bound to loose. I beg to differ for I believe that it’s a win-win situation for both parties!

Nibble is a technique of negotiation (Though not new but as a typical MBA I have to present it in a structured format). I will explain it using an example and I assume you to be a male customer for ease of reference, though same trick can be applied for female customers as well.

You enter into an exclusive men’s shop in the nearby area to buy a suit for yourself as one of your close friend is getting married. Because men’s lapel widths change from year to year (because of planned obsolescence ;) ), it’s obvious that you are concerned about style, its fall, the TASHAN and that’s the reason why you are carrying a tape measure with you. A salesman, eager to help and assist you, approaches eagerly.

“May I help you? “ Asks the salesman
“I think so” ….u reply, frowning thoughtfully.
So, for two and a half hour you shuffle from rack to rack, Brand to brand, solids to stripes, measuring lapels….always trailed by the salesman, who does not dare leave you because you keep asking him question regarding size, fit, shoulder widths, cuff, sleeves style and everything you know about the suit. You repeat, over and over again, how long this style gonna stay? When he offers his educated guess, you ask, “Are you sure?”

After you have examined 43 suits and checked the material of the entire lot and the salesman is ready to blow his cool, you mercifully declare, “I think I’ll take the so-and-so suit for Rs. 2000 ……the one over therein very subdued stripes”. The salesman sighs with (obvious) relief. Trying desperately his joy at being relieved of you (Stupid, not because you bought the suit but because you are finally getting off his case), he murmurs “would you follow me please?”. He leads you to the alteration section of the store and by the time the an elderly gentlemen tries to pin and chalk your suit for proper alteration, the salesman calculates his commission and generates the bill after a painstaking task of selling a suit to you.

At this juncture you twist your head towards the salesman and ask, matter of factly,”What kind of tie you will be throwing in as free?”

The sales man stops in his tracks, all mental calculations suspended for the moment. He looks at the old man on the floor. The old man raises his head not knowing whether to shove in another pin and make another chalk mark.

[This is what is known as “NIBBLE”!!]

What goes on in the salesman’s mind when the first wave of hatred subsides? He grunts inwardly: This surly faced customer has consumed my two and a half hour. I didn't have a coffee break, have strained my shoulders after putting 43 suits on his back and I have watched this nitwit trying all the shade and all that’s down the drain. ” What have I got here?” What can I assemble from this wreckage? My commission comes out to be Rs. 400. I suppose I can buy this clown a tie from my commission and hope I never see him again."

Will you get a tie? Of course. Will you win the love and admiration of the salesman? That’s something else again. He will give you free tie because of his emotional involvement and not cause of Love and Affection.

Would the Nibble have worked if he hadn’t invested an inordinate amount of time? The success of Nibble is directly proportionate to the time invested.

Final tip: Your initial approach should always be collaborative as if you are hungry for help. So keep Nibbling, its just another way of negotiation.

Authored by: Nitesh Kumar, MBA (IMT Nagpur), Syntel, Pune.
Edited By: None other than the B'Day boy, Varun Parwal, the recently crowned FRM

BAQ -- The Brand Awareness Quotient

Hey readers and fellow shopaholics, it was while i was writing my last post that i was hit by this question. Now it's not a general knowledge question but it's more inclined towards the awareness of different brands which exist in the market.

The question under discussion here popped up during a little shopping excursion I indulged myself in this saturday. After shifting through loads of tees in pantaloons, i finally found a tee which could do a good job of hiding my developing paunch. But lo and behold, to my utter chagrin, i realised it was not the correct size. The attendants at the store made a huge show of searching for the right size but even they couldn't come up with it. But the tee was really nice and so how could i, the great shopping warrior, accept defeat so easily! My next course of action was then to go that brand's showroom in City Centre, Salt Lake.

This mission of finding the right tee size was turning quite personal. I mean, we Parwals don't accept defeat so easily! So off i went in this searing heat to City Centre and on reaching the brand's showroom, a catastrophic revelation was discovered: the two brands were as different and far apart as North & South Pole even though they shared the same first name!

I guess I better break the suspense before you decide to hack off my head. The brands in question are Lee and Lee Cooper!! I'd never felt so low or so so downright trodden -- I mean, what will I tell my friends and my younger cousins and older ones too who assume I am the bible on everything related to fashion and brands! My brand awareness quotient (BAQ) was just proved to be zero! I mean, I'd always preusmed that the two brands were the same -- heck, just goes to show how you should never assume things! Question all your assumptions!! Anyways, I soon intend to research the difference between the two brands and post an update.. So keep watching this space for more brand fundas!!

N.B. I just got a book titled Everything you Desire and a BIG box of chocolates! The book sounds interesting, I'll update you on the same if it's worth a read!

A lazy Sunday morning!

Hello readers, sorry for not blogging for the last couple of days! Slept till 4 pm yesterday after which I did some shopping and of course, collected my cool new specs and disposable lenses! This was followed by a 30-minute wal -- I was trying to make up for the fact that I was not able to visit the gym .. call it my guilty conscience or what ever that was at work...

Had a lovely evening though! After a late dinner, went with a few family members (13 to be precise) for a cuppa of coffee in the swanky Sector V .. However, much to our chagrin, the Barista Coffee shop had downed its shutters -- so we then jumped over to the CCD lounge in the Infinity building adjacent to the building housing Barista. After some lovely coffees and leg pulling, we finally reached home after 12:30 .. the drive back home was pretty amazing too!

By the way, I have finally bought the Canon PowerShot S5 IS camera! N lemme tell you, its a beauty and a steal at the price I bought it for! And do take a look at some of these Harley Davidson bike pics! They sure are sexy and make me wish I'd the fortune of owning one of these. Was initially trying to upload an ad for the Harley Davidson bikes which I got from one of my friends in the media and advertising industry. It was taking such an agonizingly loooong time to upload -- so I then did the next best thing and uploaded some pics!

Blackle -- The dark sheep of the Google clan

Read the following.........

Google uses white screen which consumes high power.According to a blog, if Google had a black screen,taking in account the huge number of page views,according to calculations, 750 mega watts/hour peryear would be saved..!!!!!!

In response, Google created a black version of itssearch engine,called Blackle, with the exact samefunctions as the white version, but obviously withlower energy consumption:Help spread the word.

Please use http://www.blackle.com/

The Social Outcast

Hey fellow readers, scribbled below is an article I received this after from a senior in office. Quite a good read, I believe that the article has been written by a journalist named Manu Joseph working for the Times of India.

The most foolish description of youth is that it is rebellious. The young
do wear T-shirts that say Rebel or Che or Bitch. But the truth is that the
youth, especially in this country, is a fellowship of cowards. It lives in fear.
Fear of life, fear of an illusory future.

The perpetual trauma of the forward castes is inextricably woven into this fear. And what Arjun Singh's successful reservation campaign has denied them is the right to a secured but ordinary life, a life that comes with scoring 98 percent in the board exams, a life that goes like this: Engineer-MBA-anonymous. You can argue that this route is better than sociology-salesman-anonymous. But that will be to focus unduly on the ordinary among the cowards. The real tragedy concerns the extraordinary cowards. Great writers, painters, musicians and athletes who are lost forever to what are moronically called, 'the professional courses'. Instead of pursuing their talents they are, right now, in dark gloomy tutorials preparing for entrance exams, fatally infected by objective type questions. The angle between tangents drawn from the point (1,4) to the parabola y^2=4x is?

The angst of the types who score over 95 percent also fills me, and several lakhs like me, with wicked joy. I was the 75 percent type. It was not pleasurable to be so in Madras of the eighties. I grew up in Kodambakkam where Telugu film directors, who wore white shoes, kept their beautiful mistresses; and Anglo Indian girls in skirts, who did not have hair on their legs, and all of whom I now remember only as Maria, walked to Fatima Church. But a large part of my formative years were spent in a Brahmin housing society called Rajaram Colony where fathers were all clerks and mothers were housewives. Rare working women had the same aura as divorcees.

I was special because I was a Christian, and the transitory relatives of my
neighbours, when they learnt my religion, would speak to me in English.Many of
my friends were periodically thrashed with belts by their fathers when the
miasmic green report cards came home. Once, I heard the cries of a boy who had
scored just ninety percent in a maths monthly test. Another form of punishment
was heating a stainless steel serving spoon and inflicting minor burns. It was called, 'soodu'. My parents never hit me for my marks though my report cards
were inspiring. My mother beat me up occasionally for political reasons – every
time her mother-in-law came visiting. Apparently, according to a rustic
Malayalee way of life, thrashing the kids was a hint to the in-law that it was
time to leave.

Those days, the legends of Rajaram Colony were our seniors who had
entered the IITs, or as a consequence, had gone to America to study further.
Their names were taken with reverence. When they visited home, they left a trail
of whispers. And when they deigned to play cricket with us, we observed closely
how they bowled and how they batted. Because they knew everything. It was
already decided in every household, except mine, that the boys will go to IIT, a
certainty just like their sisters will do BSc Nutrition.

And so my friends began their furtive preparation when they were not yet thirteen. They began to score higher and higher at school. And they began to look at me as an unfortunate freak, not only because they thought they were brighter but also because I said I wanted to become a journalist. They scored better than me in English too.
(Once in an English test, when asked the opposite gender of ram, almost every one in my class, astonishingly, knew the answer was ewe. I wrote, 'Sita'). I did always claim a higher creative status and often entertained the backbenchers, who were chiefly sons of illiterate parents, by calling my Brahmins friends, "curd-rice muggers".In the school I had slowly gained a reputation as a poet and some sort of a stand-up comedian. But as I approached the 12th standard, I was not the hero anymore of the juniors. That honour drifted to a brilliant boy, the
first ranker who once used to play the tabla and did not touch the instrument
anymore because he was preparing for IIT's Joint Entrance Exam. (A few years
later, I would meet him on the campus of IIT Chennai. He would tell me that he
will not go to America. "Because, you see, with transcendental meditation, you
can sit here in Madras and visit any country in the world". He was serious. Now,
he is a banker in San Francisco).

Meanwhile, in the Rajaram Colony, I observed that older Brahmin boys who had, somehow, fared poorly in the 12th standard and had to suffer the humiliation of pursuing BSc walked in the perpetual mist of guilt and embarrassment. They took to smoking and drinking, and 'sighting' – the disreputable art of looking at girls. They stared at a future in Eureka Forbes.

I eventually moved out of the Colony to another such fiendish place but kept in
touch with my childhood friends. The distance between us, however, grew. They
did not really want to see me. I was a distraction in their preparation "for
life". There was nothing they could talk to me about, nothing they could share,
like their latest JEE sample test scores or the traits of the teachers at
Brilliant Tutorials. On my part, I began to find them unhappy and bleak. Once,
they were fresh and eager. Like me, they wanted to play cricket for India. Some
were interested in music, some even attempted novels. Now, they were zombies in
the trance of a whole material world that was just one entrance exam
away.

Eventually, almost all of them scored in the high nineties in the 12th standard exams. One made it to the IIT. The others prepared to go to second rung engineering colleges in humid melancholic towns. But they still thought they were more victorious than me because I had got 75%, a misfortune that their parents could not believe would visit someone who had two hands and one head. Worse, I told them that I was going to do a BA in English Literature. At that time, people did not think you were gay because you wanted to do literature. But they still did not understand why a male would do such a thing. They asked me if I was alright, if I could reconsider, if some maternal ornaments could be sold for the good cause of capitation fee.

Some days, I think of those boys from another time. They are mostly bankers in America now and, I imagine, partly responsible for the subprime crisis. They are in the glow of the life that they had so dearly sought. But somehow I feel that their sisters, who eventually pursued what they wanted to, have more interesting lives. Also, occasionally I hear that some IITian or the other is returning to the art that he had originally loved. And is making up for the time he has lost because he could
crack the toughest questions in the world but could not answer in time the class
teacher's annual question, "What do you want to become in life?"

Now the reason why I am sharing this article with you is that I felt as much of an outcast as the writer of this article. I mean, just look at my qualification -- I am neither an engineer (like all of my school friends) nor an
MBA (like all of my college friends).. I don't even have the fortune of being a CA/CS guy (like my seniors at work). I dare to walk down a path which I have carved out for myself -- I am grateful to my parents for backing me the way they have done all their life: With full faith, they have allowed me to walk the path of my choosing, never ever giving in to the pressures of others -- society, family, friends.. I wonder what gave them this confidence in me -- Was it my sheer stubborness or did they see something more of what lay beyond the picture? I don't know but maybe one day, I'll be able to seek the answer to this question -- Till then, I intend to continue blazing down this path I've chosen
to adorn!

--- HoooooKaaaaaH-ED ---

Hookah-ed!! – Tracing the Hookah Evolution

The shisha is the latest trend in lounges and coffee bars -- It's no longer like an exotic scene from a Middle Eastern film, where the handsome sheikh relaxes with his hookah in his harem. In fact, smoking the water pipe, hookah or shisha as its otherwise known, is a trend catching on fast around the world.

From preppy young professionals in the US to desi BPO workers in Indian metros like Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai, people are choosing to relax with a drink and a community smoke after a long, hard day of taxing and mentally draining work. The mystique surrounding the hookah and the different flavors it comes in makes it seem even more fun. The hookah adds to the whole lounge bar image that's so happening now - a leisurely, chilled-out experience. It encourages conversation, quite different from the usual noisy pub ambience. The flavors vary from cappuccino and orange to mint and apple. It's a fad like no other, the trend has become a big hit in India and it’s finding its way to Tier 2 cities like Indore, Aurangabad, Nagpur, et cetera…





Its sweet flavors and non-irritating smoke lead many to believe that hookah smoking is less harmful for one's health than cigarettes. But I would like to comment that this has not been conclusively proved. Moing away from the contentious effects of hookah on one's health vis-a-vis cigarette smoking, let’s dwell on the origin & the evolution of the hookah.

The origins of the hookah can be traced to the north western provinces of India along the border of Pakistan in Rajasthan and Gujarat nearly a millennia back. These hookahs were simple, primitive, and rugged in design, usually made from a coconut shell base and tube with a head attached. They were designed to smoke opium and hashish. The hookah made its way through the Persian Kingdom, which also included Pakistan, Afghanistan, much of Middle Asia and Arab parts of Northern Africa. The hookah acquired tombeik on its way through Persia. Tombeik is a dark tobacco grown in modern day Iran. Tombeik is rinsed and packed in the large older style heads where hot coal is applied directly to the wet tombeik, which gives it a strong flavor. The hookahs designed in the Persian Empire are still hand crafted with each one being cut from a piece of wood!!!!!!!!!

When the hookah made its way into Turkey about 500 years ago, it endured a surge of popularity among the upper class and intellectuals and thus underwent a change in design. The hookah grew in size and complexity and became similar to the designs that we are more familiar with today. Brass and glass were added to the design and less wood was used. Intricate paintings and mosaics were added for beauty and elegance. A hookah bar waiter was treated with the respect accorded to a chef because the preparation for hookah smoking required exquisite skills. The packing and moisture was a cultivated skill, and it was considered rude to touch the coals.

Hookah smoking migrated south into the Arab world from Turkey to Lebanon and Syria where it got the name Argile. It then spread into Egypt and Morocco, where it came to be known as Shisha. It is also know as the Hubble bubble in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Today, hookah bars are social places where many people get together to discuss politics and local events. In Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the hookah bars are for men only but in some Muslim countries, many believe that the hookah is harem or Forbidden. Most hookah smoking countries serve Naklia shisha.

Naklia shisha is a combination of foreign tobaccos, honey molasses and dried fruit. The smoke is filtered through ice cold water to make the smoke cool and soothing. Older generations smoked hashish and opium, which created a negative stigma for the drug-free hookah that is smoked today. Slowly society is accepting the modern-day hookah as more of a pipe for tobacco instead of illegal drugs. The hookah has been growing in popularity in the United States and Europe since the experimentation of the 60's. Now they are in every college head shop and Middle Eastern market across the entire U.S... It is also growing in popularity in Japan.

The Massell is a kind of tobacco used in smoking the Shisha (Nargila, Argila, Boury and Gouza). It is a blend of international tobacco leaves. This blend gives a special flavor and taste with the additives of molasses extracted from sugarcane and other additives. The Authorities of Measurement Standards have decided on those additives, so that it will be adequate for smoking. With the advent in the 20th century whereas of smoking and the discovered harms of smoking cigarettes. Like what happened to the international companies of great concern to the studies to decrease the harms of smoking, the Massell companies started to think in ways to decrease harms albeit the Massell is less harmful then the tobacco cigarettes.

By this time you must have understood my love for Hookah. The first time I had Hookah was three years ago in Aqua Java along with XYZ (Name withheld due to explicit reasons) under the mentoring of our Great Shri GAURAV Guru Ji Dhandak. We drove into the city from Esplanade to Rabindra Sadan and were looking for a place to sit & share our views on almost all the topic under the sun ;-) Hunting for a suitable place for the ideal kind of discussion, we soon found ourselves in Aqua Java, AJ, (Behind 22 Camac St, Kolkata, In front of Pizza Hut). The waiters at this café seated us at a place with the perfect view of the hookah cum coffee house.We were served an Inhale hookah that had a very thick base. Along with the hookah, we ordered black coffees with a bowl of brown sugar (We love that -- you know that, don’t you?). The coffee was excellent and (mmmm ..) Rocking and along with the hookah, gave us an eternal feel of being on a high!!

AJ uses the generic "modern" bowls on all hookahs, and they all seemed to work well. They had bags of natural wood coals and they put a few coals on and our server primed it by puffing away while adding coals till it was just right. He handed us a biggg pipe and a few hose tips, and away we went.

The experience, the high, the feel was fantastic! The hookah hit us like a freight train for the first 25-30 minutes, at least I felt it that ways though XYZ and Shri Gaurav Guru ji were unfazed. I felt a Buzzzzing in my head like that of the bees inside a honeycomb!! But with the buzz came a very unique flavor. It really tasted like a summer day on a nice beach – very, very unique & very tasty. We sat around smoking and drinking the coffee in AJ in for about an hour or so. Finally, we decided to pay our bill, which came to Rs 629/- for a looong bowl of shisha and our Coffeeeezzz, and made our way back. And since then, we have never let up on our search for new, exotic places which serve hookah! The sexiest hookah I’ve had till date was at the Café Mocha Juhu Beach branch.

Now you may believe that smoking hookah is bad and injurious to health but I would simply like to quote this Turkeyish statement which signifies everything I and other hookah-ed lovers hold dear about Hookah:

"Cigarettes are for nervous people, competitive people, and people on the run but when you smoke a Narghile (in Turkey), you have time to think. It teaches you patience and tolerance, and gives you an appreciation of good company. Narghile smokers have a much more balanced approach to life than cigarette smokers.”


While people may have different opinions on this, I fully subscribe to the above statement.. ;) Because, as you can see, I’m totally HOOKAH-ed!!

Authored by: Nitesh Kumar, MBA (dual specialization in Finance and Marketing)
Edited by: Varun Parwal, FRM

Views on the Indian Tech Industry

It's a topic that has often been debated - that India's tech industry is a lot like the Chinese manufacturing phenomenon - Low cost, reasonable quality, minimal innovation.

Here's how Indian IT companies operate (Infy, TCS, Wipro and the second string ones such as Mastek, Satyam, Patni etc.) -- Hire engineers in bulk, never mind that they are not computer scientists or electrical engineers - if they can write a few lines of code in C/C++ and are academically decent, they're hired. After all, they don't need brilliant engineers - just people who will do as they are told and reasonably intelligent enough to get the client's work done, and bullshit their way out of it if they don't. They'll rarely make CAD software for Electrical engineering or Mechanical engineering. Instead they will develop "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. By develop I mean code, not design - there is a huge difference between the two, something which I will touch upon shortly. One important thing to note is that the HR in most IT companies dont give a damn about individual interests. They will put you wherever they need someone to slog for them. I've had one HR person tell me that they will put me in a project where they get maximum money, regardless of my interest in the vacancy. And then they wonder why so many people leave!!!

What is the nature of the work? At least 70% of the international projects in most indian IT companies is maintenence - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is add more features/change behaviour as per client's request. Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. Take calls from the client, update on the status. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didn't get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development - write code. But then, writing code is easy - it is like manufacturing a car. What is not, is designing a system that works efficiently. Typically, foreign clients get the design done by the likes of Accenture, IBM etc. The designs are then sent to desi companies, who actually do the coding at a cost much cheaper than IBM or Accenture. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming. Technology is a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, until they are made project managers - after which they spend their lives approving timesheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client . Wait a second - shouldn't an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBAs?

Why is it so hard for desi companies to do design? The've not tried hard enough (yet) to get into this space. They just don't have the competence to get the job done. Desi companies are amazing at procedure oriented projects - if there is a procedure in place telling us what to do, we can do it. They don't have the experience (and therefore the brand equity) to attract IT consulting projects. Consulting is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build such a reputation, desi companies need to hire high-flying consulants - they don't come cheap. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results! (Lately, Infy is trying to get into this space, I'm told, so good luck to them. I don't think TCS is though :-)) How many software products come out of Indian cos? IFlex is the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive and again, there is no guarantee of success - why risk it when services give me an assured income?

Why do we need to get into high end IT - consulting and products? Simply because the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. As payscales rise in india and the rupee appreciating w.r.t. the dollar, margins become more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive as say Brasil or Russia - the American companies will take their projects out there! You can see trends in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan was the manufacturing base for American cos, then SouthKorea and then these days, China For too long have we been stuck in the procedure oriented IT services. It is time to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense. Indian companies thus have 2 choices - identify and set shop in countries where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied (TCS seems to be taking this route) or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography (Which Infy is trying) . I believe the latter is the better route - it is a high margin business and reasonably high tech. What is even better, is coming up with technology - like Java, efficient databases, advanced operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft). That is real tech. It's not that we can't do it. It's just that we dont want to risk it . But, nothing venture, nothing have! Desi companies don't even do proper R&D!

Finally, a true story. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) was huge in the chip manufacturing industry, making almost 60% profit. They could have got into chip design, and potentially, designed low cost chips. However, design is a risky business - what if the chip bombs? TSMC chose to stick to it's core competence - fabrication. In time, TSMC's profits have declined to 20% or so... they're still number one, but don't make as much money as they used to... Are we learning yet?

P.S.: This article was sent in by Saurabh Sureka, MBA (Finance) from KJ Somaiyya. He is currently employed with Irevna, Chennai. If you have an interesting article and would like to get it publsihed here, please mail the same to me @ varun.parwal@gmail.com

A look at real estate valuation methodologies ..

Real estate market in developing countries is in the early stages of development, resulting in

· Non-transparent and illiquid market with significant regulatory controls that impede capital flows;
· Non-availability of quality data about the economy and the industry; and
· Professional and ethical standards, etc.

Segregation of real estate is depicted in the diagram given below.

In the residential division, liquidity is easy and low funding is required as most of the companies take money in advance. Commercial space is mostly leased out and fund requirement is high. In the hospitality division, operational freedom is mostly passed on to the user.

The increasing popularity of real estate in India has drawn the attention of both practitioners and academicians towards the intricacies of real estate and its valuation aspect. A wrong estimation of value of business may prove to be economically disastrous for either the buyer or seller. Some valuation models lay emphasis on accounting parameters (e.g. P/E multiple), some value firms on the basis of future cash flow (e.g. Shareholder Value Approach) while others attempt to value a firm on the basis of economic profit (e.g. EVA method). The basis of valuation is normally past performance and future prospects.

For old firms having sufficient past data and acceptable bases to estimate future growth prospects, valuation becomes less troublesome. But for Industry like real estate, having relatively no past record, no comparable data, no industry history and volatile growth prospect, are very difficult to value. Valuation on the basis of future earning capacity (e.g. Profit earning capacity value) or on net asset basis is fraught with criticism. P/E based valuation have three basic limitations:
a) Market price (P) of share is forward looking, whereas the EPS (E) is historical;
b) The relationship between EPS and market price has not yet been satisfactorily established; and
c) The EPS is subject to accounting distortions.

Of course the first criticism can be countered with an estimated EPS. But the typical way of valuing a firm on the basis of its own P/E or comparable P/E is not justified because this assumes the continuance of P/E multiple. The P/E itself undergoes frequent changes and hence using the past P/E or comparable P/E to find out future market value is not justified. Valuation of the firm on the basis of replacement value of its assets is used when the firm is liquidated. This method may be used to find out the break up value of the firm (i.e., if the firm ceases to continue its operations in the future). Another limitation of using asset based valuation model is that the value of a firm is not driven by market value of assets it owns but by the future cash generating capacity of the assets.

The biggest fallacy while valuing real estate companies is to look for common parameters to value these companies. Each company has a different business model and its own core competencies and skill set. Each company should be valued independently to ascertain the value of the assets and overall competency of the business model. Business models are unique for all companies.

· Location of Land Bank
· Low land cost
· Construction capability
· Product offering

A DCF-based NAV valuation seems more suitable than the P/E based valuation method which neither captures the value of the land bank (most critical resource in the industry), nor its high growth potential. Also, near-term profits (next 4-8 quarters) are largely determined by recent real estate prices and historic land costs and hence don’t fully reflect the future outlook. A DCF-based NAV methodology is better suited as it addresses these issues; it understates the value of the developer as it excludes terminal value (while all developers aggressively add to their land banks). As many companies have land parcels with development horizon of more than three years, their full value is not showcased in an earnings-based valuation. Moreover, the business models of companies are not similar, with each having its own mix of developmental formats (residential, commercial, malls, SEZs, construction, townships, hotels), rental incomes and price positioning. Ascribing similar earnings multiples would not justify the valuations of these companies. The valuations are further complicated due to want of proper management disclosures, lack of clarity on land banks and status of payments and receivables. In more developed markets, P/E and asset valuation methodologies are used for valuing real estate companies. P/E multiples can be used in developed markets as the business models are robust and the companies have an extensive track record. However, asset valuation still remains the underlying benchmark, given that globally, real estate investment trusts (asset owners) have larger market-cap compared with real estate developers having higher earnings.


P.S.: This article was contributed by Nitesh Kumar, an MBA from IMT Nagpur with dual specialization in Finance and Marketing. He will be joining Syntel, Pune in the near future. If you too want to see your articles in this space, then please mail me your work @ varun.parwal@gmail.com .. Looking forward to your contribution and Nitesh, thanks for helping me out so generously!

Hyderabad Pics!

Rick Price's Heaven Knows

Dear readers, it's my pleasure to share with you some lines from an amazing song that I heard today .. Hope you enjoy reading the lyrics as much as I enjoyed listening to the song!

She's always on my mind
From the time I wake up,
Till I close my eyes
She's everywhere I go
She's all I know
And though she's so far away,
It just keeps getting
Stronger everyday
And even now she's gone
I'm still holding on

So tell me, where do I start
'Cause it's breakin' my heart
Don't wanna let her go

Maybe my love will
Come back someday
Only Heaven knows
And maybe our hearts
Will find a way
But only Heaven knows
And all I can do
Is hope and pray
'Cause Heaven knows

My friends keep telling me
That if you really love her,
You've gotta set her free
And if she returns in time
I'll know she's mine

But tell me, where do I start
'Cause it's breakin' my heart
Don't wanna let her go

Maybe my love will
Come back someday
Only Heaven knows
And maybe our hearts
Will find a way
But only Heaven knows
And all I can do
Is hope and pray

'Cause Heaven knows
Why I live in despair
'Cause wide awake or dreamin'
I know she's never there
And all the time I act so brave,
I'm shakin' inside
Why does it hurt me so?

Maybe my love will
Come back someday
Only Heaven knows
And maybe our hearts
Will find a way
But only Heaven knows
And all I can do
Is hope and pray
'Cause Heaven knows

Heaven knows
Heaven knows

The Digital War -- Part II

Hey guys finally here is the pics of the Sony CyberShot H10 .. An awesome semi-pro camera for those who want something more than those point-and-shoot digicams .. I mean even those cameras are not bad but these babies are meant for those who take the art of photography passionately and just want to go clicking off the world!

So these are the two cameras which are fitting in my meagre budget of 25k .. To shoot off the common features, both cameras are 8.0 MP and come with a 2 GB memory card! Quite handy, I tell you. Both phones offer face recognition function, with the Canon S5 allowing you to zoom, identify and focus on 9 faces in an image compared to the 8 face-recognition ability offfered in Sony. Both offer optical image stabilization as well.

Sony H10 is fitted with a Carl Zeiss lens and has 10.0x Optical zoom and I think around 2.0 Digital Zoom. I am not sure about the digital zoom bit but I don't expect it to be more than this.

The Canon S5, on the other hand, comes with an ultra-powerful 12.0 optical zoom and 4.0 digital zoom and has 22 shooting modes, pretty neat huh? You can also change the lens for the Canon camera and as per your budgett and mastery, you can fit the camera with sophisticated and expensive lenses. Also, the camera offers extensive movie functions and man, it;s one hell of a buy @ 18.5k when compared to the Sony H10's price of 14.4k!!

So all you gadget freaks, I hope you liked the two-part article!

The Digital WaR

Well as you intelligent birdies can already guess, I have set my eyes and hearts and loosened my purse strings to lay my hands on this latest piece of an entry-level camera for photographers like us who cannot even claim to be qualified as amateurs! But lo and behold, the entire world better watch out as I am determined to carry forward this hobby which I am addicted to! Please hold my father responsible for this hobby as he was the person who was usually entrusted with the camera in most family functions!

The two pics on the left hand side are the front and the back end of the Canon PowerShot S5, respectively.. Looks sexy in black, does it not?? Technology can never bore you and unlike females, you can actually try and master technology! So, all you impulsive flirts, why don’t you try to flirt around with a new gender commonly known as TECHNLOGY? In the long run, it sure will become easier on your pocket and who knows, it might even replace the women in your life! Or so claims my friends who are addicted their X-BOX! Enjoy with the woman and the technology in your life!

-- On a High --

Heylooo guys! Well, today I sure am on a high .. Don't ask me why cozz I don't know myself .. Well, ok so I do have an idea but still, can anything compare to the feeling of flying high on the sky knowing that professionally, the work you do is right bang on the money! As an analyst, my biggest joy is when I see a stock perform in line with a rating I assign to it as justified by the company's fundamentals! And especially when it's a Sell rating, the joy is multiplied 100 times the drop in the stock's price!

Anyways, this blog isn't about my job, so I'll refrain from making any more references to it save for one thing -- I have completed 1 year in Investment Research and there is no better way to celebrate the same!

By the way, I have been doing some camera hunting off late, trying to understand the fine difference between a digital camera (point and shoot types), the semi-pro and the SLR cameras! N to tell you the truth, I sure am bowled over by the variety which is available in the market. My eyes and heart are all set on capturing the entry-level SLR camera by Canon, the PowerShot S5 IS ..

An eventful day

Hey guys had an awesome time yesterday with my friend Dahul -- we also shot a few videos which I might put up on this site later today! Yesterday, the net connection at home was barely able to sputter -- had to abort all thoughts of doing some blogging/reading around 1 in the night! N since I'm already in office at this hour, I hope you all realise how sleepy I must be! ;-)

Anyways, yesterday was special for one more reason in that I received an awesome, heck of a testimonial from a very dear friend of mine who I'd never thought could muster such great writing skills and actually sit down to write testimonials (with very accurate descriptions of his friends) for TWELVE people! Way to go buddy, you should be in my seat! I just wish he can harness al his talents and really propel himself in his career!! Maybe he will; he missed writing about my tendency to fret unnecessarily --anyways I would have defended myself saying that I like to have a 360 degree view! N dude, I am not sure if I am really as good as I felt after I read your testimonial but you surely haven't seen my entire palette of colours! One of these days, god willing, some one will tell you about the "GRAY" shade in life which I exposed that person to!

Someday... somewhere .. together we would be .. MLTR Rocks definitely! N That was the sweetest testimonial I've ever received .. Errrr .. second sweetest .. I mean next to THE SWEETEST testimonial .... Oh well, buddy, you simply rocked me off my bed in that testimonial.. If only you were a gal or maybe even a transvestite .. If only..

Some awesome pics!

Above is the aerial view of the campus off IMT Nagpur. 2 bravehearts travelled all the way on top of a Hutch signal Tower (now renamed as Vodafone http://www.vodafone.in/) and took this pic from the top there! Awesome view right??

And below is the front view of the campus of Syntel where one or more of the graduates from this prestigious institutes will be going to begin their careers:

Dupadh-dada and his formal conundrum!

Oh what fun I'd today! My mad friend, Dahul Dupadh--dada, was in town and man, did we shop the town alive!! Errr.. Shop did you read?? Oh well, we were trying to fit him into a pair of formals - -he sure looks better in them than I do -- but still, he has a peculiar body structure with a neat, small bundle sticking out from somewhere around his waist.. People normally call such protrusions a PAUNCH -- but I am a bit more lenient with guys who choose to develop and nurture such protrusions! Ha ha.. this could well be a subject matter of another one of my posts!

But coming back to the formals section, now given his slight bent body, I decided to deck him out in a slim fit shirt.. Searched hell, heaven, Pantaloons, WestSide and Shopper Stop for a shirt fitting him and lo and behold, I finally found it in the Thomas Scott showroom in Camac St.. Now here is when my intelligence, fashion sense and simply awesome brilliance kicked...

"Dahul", I said, "buddy why don't you get these shirts, trousers and et cetera stitched from XYZ tailors? I mean you can get the shape, collar, cuff size and the entire shirt designed according to your graphic sense plus it will end up costing you much less than any of these over-priced branded shirt. Plus, the shirt will fit you like second skin or you can design them any which way you fantasize!"

Dahul pondered over it for a while and in a manner pretty unique to him declared his profound admiration of me and sang praises of the simple brialliance which only yours truly is capable of displaying! I actually want to write in more graphic details the madness I displayed in the 3 hours I was with him but I request you readers to kindly exercise some patience as I am not very used to writing so much about my experiences!

N.B.: Ha ha, Mr. Ditesh Kumar, I'd a helluva time in Aqua Java with Dahul! Missed you buddy! N Daurav, best of luck for your interviews tomorrow! Ah.. Dauri, Ditu is asking me not to forward you some of his pics!! Call me for more details! The pic is worth a thousand betrayals man -- only for the right price though!

-- A Walk in the Rain --

Thank god for blessing us with a cool breeze and heavy downpours in the last couple of days here in Calcutta. Ahead of Poila Baisakh, the Bengali New Year, I sure am glad to have gotten a temporary respite from the heat, the sweat and the grime!

It's not like I don't like summer! I mean summer too has its own pleasures -- the awesome variety of mangoes, mouth watering lichis, the watermelons and then alu-bukharas (sorry I don't recall the English name of this fruit) ..

But the humidity coupled with the stifling heat in this part of the country is sure to drain you of all the necessary ingredients in your body!! ha ha, does this sound like the latest Glucon-C ad?? Just in casse if it does, do be sure to go out and feast on the lovely drinks and the ice creams which promise to beat the heat!

Feeling nostalgic as I am writing this -- I sure am missing our walks down those memory lanes when I so much enjoyed getting dragged out of my dry surroundings out into the wet and the muddy roads by some of my great f(r)iends like Ditesh, Dabhishek, Daurav, Dahul, Damit -- et cetera et cetera .. Drinking those chais at the roadside dhabas - -Azad hind, Bachchan Singh and our all-time favorite, the Russell St Dhaba!! Kya din the wo .. Purani jeans aur guitar .. Ditesh ki lambi lambi baatein -- The ever-present sense of humor of Dabhishek -- Our never-ending "KYUN" sawaals to Daurav -- apne CA, Damit, ke wo awesome one-liners and speeches borne out of frustration and - not to forget -- the omnipresent madness of Dahul!!

But not to worry, we are all constantly in touch with each other and yep, ye dur rehne wale hum calcuta-wasiyon se milne k liye frequently aate rehte hai .. So, once-in-a-while, main meri in yaadon k sahare apne ye pal kaat leta hu!

N.B.: Names of friends changed for obvious reasons!

Book Review -- The Kite Runner

Hey guys, after reading the two-part review of a fellow blogger's review of the Kite Runner, I thought of sharing with you the review of the book which got me my first official job!! Written over 2 years earlier, I hope you still enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it then!

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner is one of the finest books I've ever read. It is the first novel to be written in English by an Afghan. The novel derives its name from the Afghan custom of doing battle with kites. The following paragraphs give a brief sketch of how the book is written.

As a boy, Amir cravenly betrays his servant and best friend, the Hazara boy Hassan. When the Russians come, Amir and his father move to America, where Amir becomes a successful writer. He embraces America because it "had no ghosts, no memories, and no sins." But when Amir learns that a childhood mentor is ailing back home, he returns to discover that his relationship to Hassan had been deeper than he realized. This leads him on a hazardous journey to rescue and adopt Hassan's son, whose father the Taliban had executed.

The book can be read as a three-part novel. In the first part, Hosseini engages in nostalgic childhood recreation of a lost Afghanistan during the last days of the monarchy of the then-ruler and the regime that overthrew him. The second part explores emigration during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the tragedies of a displaced and tired people living in cultural bubbles of the past; it describes the process of migration and character of the expatriate community. The last part explores the Taliban's Afghanistan. It deals with the horror humans can inflict on other humans and stresses the underlying tone of standing up to repression.

All in all the novel portrays the various human emotions ranging from envy to betrayal and finally to a sense of duty and redemption of Amir's pride and honour. Although Hosseini claims that this is only fiction and a product of his imagination I felt a sense of deja-vu all throughout the book. But despite all that I feel that the book packs quite a punch and it is a must read.

JLo -- Pregnant & Blonde!!

Oh well, I know I know she is no more pregnant now, she gave birth to beautiful twins four weeks earlier but this is a confirmed news that she has gone in for a change of looks!! Oh JLo what have you done?? Blonde doesn't suit you, we are BUTT-your-fans!!

Will upload her latest pic as soon as one is available; till then enjoy this crafty piece of imagery! ;-) Spotted this pic in rediff.com!!

Blogathon India

Hey guys let me take this opportunity to share something about a marathon of a different sort -- A Blogathon.. Check out the details @ Blogathon India [http://blogathon.in/].

The format is simple and straightforward - on the 12th of April, six topics of social interest would be released in genres that touch infrastructure, politics, religion, media, sport, cinema and gender. What you need to do is to pick up one or more topics, and express your views on them by simply posting on your usual blog, or by commenting on the blog posts if you don’t call yourself a blogger. What’s more, the best posts of the Blogathon are decided by a jury and web awards are given for bloggers to sport on their blogs.

So what are you waiting for? Begin by checking out the Blogathon India website [www.blogathon.in] and the FAQs to answer some of the questions you might have. And then go ahead and spread the word sporting the ubercool badges. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a blogger, you could come along and comment on any of the issues. Or maybe, this is a good time to take up blogging?